Desolace
by Snake of the Rose
Summary: Serenity - Fox McCloud has once again accomplished the impossible. Even though his body is battered and broken, his soul is the brightest it's ever been. Intermission.
1. Foreword

**_This foreword is a _****warning **to all those who are to read further into my story.

**_AUTHOR'S NOTES_**

_-_

Hello, World of FanFiction. I'm _**Snake of the Rose,** _or **_SOTR _**for short. _Desolace _is my first legitimate fanfic here on this website.

I've ran into a few complications with the story's plot, and Desolace will be receiving a revamp of its chapters not too long from now. So take note:

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**---Any content read from chapters 2-6 is subject to change in the near future, due to flaws in the story's plot and for preparations for the 2nd half of Desolace.---**

**-**

I hope to clear out these problems soon to further maximize your reading experience! Be sure to check in often to see if I got off my lazy ass and worked on the story.

Below is a preview of the latter content of Desolace, something I posted long ago and don't necessarily want to discard just yet. Enjoy!

"Plot devices, Mr. McCloud. Plot devices." -SOTR

-

-

-

"Fox, NO!"

The vulpine groaned in pain, blood gushing from his newly-torn abdomen. "Get OUT of here! NOW!"

"Not without you, I'm not leaving!"

The beast tightened its grip around Fox's torso, shredding it deeper. Fox could do nothing but cltuch onto the flimsy root, hanging on for dear life as the beast began to drag him towards the darkness of the pestilent valley below. Krystal could do nothing but watch, her grip on the cliff face beginning to fade itself. Tears ran down her face as she watched the man she loved being savagely desecrated beneath her. She tried to yell something to him but only tears sputterred out; she almost couldn't keep her eyes open.

Fox screamed again. "KRYSTAL! NOW!" His hands slipped off of the rocks on the valley wall.

"F-F-Fooox!!"

Fox looked at her one last time, and for a moment, a peaceful look passed between them, Fox's eyes glistening as he fell. He mouthed his final words to her, as he was shrouded in the dark abyss below.

-


	2. Distress

_**STAR FOX: DESOLACE**_

_by Snake of the Rose_

_-_

**Distress**

**-**

_"You never cease to amaze me."_

-

The words gently echoed against Fox's mind, recalling earlier on the Great Fox's bridge. The StarFox Team had just finished a very important mission: recieving useless image-documents of General Pepper's hearing on the Aparoid invasion that had been settled more than 6 months ago. None of the crew needed to hear it. They had all been there, fighting not only for the safety of the Lylat System, but for the sake of their own lives. Heart-wrenching sacrifices had been made on the front lines of the apparition, not only of the Star Fox team but of the entire Lylatian Army. Soldier after soldier uselessly plunging into the dark hands of deception as the Aparoids ripped through them, as well as the even amount of valiance of Peppy and ROB, who committed acts of great servitude twice, to be exact, saving the lives of the seemingly ungrateful General Pepper, and the entire solar system. Quite frankly, thinking about it pissed Fox off.

Fox was late docking his Arwing in the hangar bay, and everyone else had gone inside to relax. As Fox jumped out of the cockpit, he didn't realize that Krystal had waited for him, wanting to talk to him. She walked up behind Fox and gently tapped his shoulder. Fox spun quickly, surprised, and accidentally bumped into her and knocked her off her feet. But before she hit the ground, Fox's reflexes allowed him to swoop down and sweep her up, unharmed. Her eyes were wide for a moment as the adrenaline wore off, and then they relaxed when she found his gaze.

"Sorry about that," Fox told her.

She shook her head. "It's fine." She narrowed her eyes at him suddenly, much like she did when she was serious. "You're stressed."

Fox let her down gently and began to walk away, in a huff. Krystal kept up, and walked next to him. "I am not," he stated.

"Fox, I know when you're lying to me."

"I'm not lying," he grumped.

"Yes you are. I can tell, because you scrounge your forehead up on that little knot and you get nervous."

Fox stopped short to look at her, irritated. "Krystal. I'm fine." He lied.

She put her hands on her hips and gave him a look. "You act like I can't sense your emotions."

Fox looked away with a sneer, and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Fine. You got me."

Krystal straightened back up and looked at him. "Talk to me. I know it always makes you feel better."

Fox looked downward with a sigh. Krystal put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently, making Fox look up again.

"It's just...I..." Fox's words failed him, but he didn't need to speak. He looked down at Krystal, who was looking at him worriedly. Fox was worried about something, and Krystal knew it.

She looked straight into his eyes, looking through his mind to clarify what was ailing him. She continued to look at him even after she found the answer, just to have that sense of security back, at least for a moment...

"Fox..." she whispered.

Fox said nothing as he put his arms around her, looking over her shoulder, her head laying against his chest, her eyes closed. The gesture was awkward, but Krystal settled into his arms snugly.

"You never cease to amaze me..."

They both looked at each other after saying the same phrase.

-

--

- **Two Hours Later, Star Fox Command Room** -

--

-

Fox sat comfortably in his command chair, leaning on his fist, quite bored. He typed random letters and codes into his computer, not even bothering doing anything constructive. There had been absolutely no action since the Aparoid Invasion. The only trips they ever had to make were for refueling, restocking,

"Or for useless junk like this!" Fox slammed the image-documents on the ground, crossing his arms.

Peppy and Slippy looked at him strangely, and Falco managed to pop his wet, feathery head out of the washroom door with a look as well.

"'Ey, what gives?" Falco asked.

Fox sat back, and gave them a scowl.

"Fox?" asked Slippy.

Fox swiveled his chair around, so the others faced the back of it. Peppy gruntled something and went back to reading his book.

Falco stepped out of the washroom, only clothed by boxers and the towel he was drying his head with. "What's the matter, Foxie?" Falco whipped his chair with the towel.

"Knock it off," Fox turned back around slowly. "You guys can't honestly act this innocent. Haven't you _noticed_?"

Slippy looked around for what Fox was talking about. "New windows?"

Fox sighed angrily. "We've had absolutely nothing to deal with for the past six months!"

Falco slipped a muscle-shirt on. "So? More vacation for us. That's a good thing, right?"

"Yeah, if you like more debt to keep up with!" Fox shot. "No missions means no money. No money means no Star Fox."

Peppy slipped off his spectacles and turned towards Fox. "We know, we all understand that," he explained. "But you have to realize that the solar system is still recovering from the Aparoids, had it been six months or not."

Fox leaned back. "That should be more then enough time," he muttered.

Falco crossed his arms. "Give it a rest, man! Those lousy Aparoids damn near killed everyone and destroyed everything! You can't expect to things to just suddenly go back to normal just for you after a threat like that!" He threw his towel down to the floor. "Countless innocent people died, and what you're mad about makes it seem like they died in vain! Aren't you at least HAPPY that you 'saved the day' again?!"

Slippy shifted his expression some, trying not to get involved. Falco was tapping his foot angrily, leering at Fox.

Six months before, Falco had witnessed Fox's bravery on the Aparoid homeworld. Fox had ran in without fear or discouragement, and that's what saved them all in the end. Now he was ungrateful, and Falco certainly didn't appreciate it.

Fox sighed. "I...I'm sorry..." He turned around away from everyone again to find Krystal standing before him, her hands on her hips.

"He's right," she said softly.

Fox rose from his chair quietly, looking at Krystal once before heading off to his quarters. Krystal looked down the hallway after him, her worried expression reappearing.

"Hmph. He'll be fine," Falco told them, picking at his beak. "He did this last week. Last time he told me how he was surprised that I hadn't left yet."

Slippy looked towards him. "Uh, Falco, that's what we all thought."

Falco sterned his look, and saw everyone slowly nod. He raised his hands in defeat, and proceeded to walk out of the room. "Say no more! You guys are jerks!"

That relieved some tension, as everyone let out a short laugh.

If only Fox was here for that, too... Krystal thought. She told the others she was going to calm Fox down, and she swore she heard a "Good Luck," come from Fox's room.

-

-

Krystal walked down the dark hallway towards Fox's quarters, which were on the very end, across from hers. She approached the door, and as she lifted her hand to knock, she heard Fox.

"Come in..."

The door opened automatically as she walked in slowly. Fox had his arms behind his head, staring up at the metallic ceiling from his bed. The room was dark.

Krystal sat next to him on the bed, not speaking. She wanted to hear what he had to say, and she gave him the look for what she wanted. Fox eyed her, and sighed.

"I know that everyone's uptight about the money too, and I'm the only one getting ass-hurt about it. It drives me nuts, knowing how they can just deal with it, and I have to lay here and rot my brain with thoughts of bad things that I know won't happen," he stated. "I'm paranoid." He rolled on his side, away from Krystal's gaze.

Krystal looked at him solemnly. "Everyone has different feelings about the matter," she told him, placing a hand on his thigh. "But we all take the feelings a different way, as individuals. It's not your fault that you worry more about things then the others. It's just your nature, and it's nothing to beat yourself up with."

Fox stared at the wall, listening to her words rattle his brain. He knew how the others felt, he knew how he felt. He knew he was different. She was speaking the truth. Unfortunately, that was just one thing that Fox couldn't handle right now. Especially with the other situation going on, which had far more sentimental value to Fox...

His mind traveled to that subject. Fox didn't want to do anything that disrupt what he had with that right now, it was far too precious too him, even if he couldn't admit it. He was afraid...afraid to do anything about it. He was throwing it all away, just by not saying those words and relieving himself of his mental torture.

"I'm a...coward..."

He closed his eyes in pain and rolled over on to his back again. He didn't sense Krystal looking at him, he didn't sense that she knew. Fox kept his eyes shut. He felt Krystal's hand leave him, and he felt her shift her weight. For a moment, he thought she had gotten off the bed, until Fox felt her laying against him, her hand stroking his face. He was caught in surprise, and didn't think quick enough to act, he only felt. He only felt her gentle touch, her warm physique, and the soft lips that met his lips slowly. He felt the pain leave him as he opened his glistening eyes to see her remarkable face upon him, her eyes closed as she kissed him. Fox slowly wrapped his arms around her, and for that stretch of time,

_He was invincible._

Their lips parted slowly, still brushing one another's slightly. Fox gazed up at her with half-open eyes, her returning look the same.

"Krystal..."

Fox's body suddenly left with hers as they were slammed against the ceiling from a violent tumble of the ship, back down on the bed, and off onto the floor.

Fox moaned as he felt blood trickle off his forehead. "Krystal, are you okay?!"

Krystal only nodded, still in shock.

Fox yelled to get some attention. "What's going on out there? Team, report!"

The door flew open suddenly as Falco zipped past the door and slipped in haste. He landed strung out in the hallway, aflutter.

_"We're under attack!"_

-

-


	3. Unveiling

**Unveiling**

-

-

"Status report! Everyone okay?!" Fox shouted as he and Krystal stumbled into the command room.

Slippy and Peppy nodded. "Slightly jumbled but still intact!" Slippy told him. "Are you and Krystal okay, Fox?"

Krystal nodded and Fox looked at his forehead instinctively and put a hand on it. He felt warmth, and when he brought his hand back down, there was a big wet stain drenching his glove. "I'm fine. What happened?" he asked as he sat in his command chair.

ROB's voice appeared over the intercom. "The Great Fox has taken minimal damage from a small explosive, sent by this assailant."

ROB pulled up a picture which appeared on the holocom before them. The figure portrayed was none other than...

"Star Wolf," Fox cursed angrily. "But why is he attacking us now?"

There was an eerie silence until a high-pitched drone got suddenly resoanted, until it was too late to realize a ship was speeding dangerously towards the large bay-view window in the front of the command center.

"Take cover!!" Fox shouted as the attacker's ship sharply and frighteningly hooked upwards right in front of them, sending a volley of point blank laser fire at the window. There was another violent shake and a deafening roar as the command center was attacked and lost power. Slippy was hurled towards the opposite wall, not being held down by anything. He slammed against some machinery and it sparked as he lay on the floor.

The chair Peppy was in fell onto its back and bounced, Peppy still in it. The book he once had had flown from his hands and took aim on Falco, who was hit in the head and fell down, once again. Fox had been strapped to his chair, Krystal still barely holding on to the back of it.

The attack was too sudden; Fox had to act quickly.

"ROB! Reboot the command center!"

There was a small acknoweledgement noise as the power flickered on. Slippy slowly arose, and Peppy lifted his chair back up.

"Thank God," said Krystal. "The ship's shields saved us. That window would've never made it."

Fox was busy scrambling on his computer. "Dammit, Wolf! Why now?"

Krystal spoke suddenly. "There was a rose on that ship.."

"Affirmative," ROB announced. "Rival fighter confirmed as Panther Caroso."

"Everyone, suit up!" Fox barked. "Prepare for combat."

"Looks like you got your wish, eh, Fox?" Falco told him as he jumped into his red battle-suit that was packed in a small compartment on the back wall.

"Not now, Falco. Everyone to the hangar! Peppy, detail us on anything you see."

Peppy nodded as the team rushed out of the main room to the bridge.

-

-

The Star Fox team sprinted towards the hangar bay, the blue lights of the bridge flashing before them.

"Why is Wolf after us?" Fox thought aloud.

"He heard your cry for help and decided to repay his old buddy a favor," Falco mocked.

"Quiet, Falco!" Krystal shot at him. "What do you think, Fox?"

Fox huffed. "I don't know, but I'm sure as hell going to find out."

Within a a few more seconds, the pilots reached the hangar and Arwings. They climbed in and ignited their ships. Fox was the first one out into open space, followed by Falco, Krystal, and Slippy.

Fox pressed a button on his HUD. "Everyone, locate an opponent on your radar and each of you take one."

Three acknoweledgements rang in. Falco rolled to the left, Slippy went right, but Krystal remained where she was.

"What are you going to do, Fox?" she asked, her face appearing on the HUD.

Fox sped forward. "I'm going to talk to Wolf." He pressed the button on his HUD again, cutting off the message. Krystal's ship lingered for a moment, and then flew off in pursuit of the rival team members.

Fox's Arwing screamed through the emptiness of space, towards the dot on his radar. He focused ahead intently.

Wolf really came at the wrong time, he thought as he sped forward. Fox's mind was set on dealing with Wolf, but it managed to wander to his previous position with Krystal. His face changed into a scowl as he realized that he was just about to release himself from his pain and misery, and finally have the guts to talk to her. Not just routine talk, but how he felt about her...Fox could've finally done it, he could've put all his worries behind him, and he could've been happy. After years of being a coward, he could've finally done it.

_Could've, could've, could've._ "Dammit!"

His thoughts were cut short as Wolf appeared with a chuckle on the HUD.

"Well, well, well. Mr. McCloud. I hope I wasn't interrupting anything."

Fox's left eye twitched at Wolf's words. "What the hell do you want? Get off my intercom!"

Wolf hardened his expression. "Quiet, Fox! I'm not here to puppy around with you."

Fox armed his lasers. "Then why did you attack the Great Fox?"

Wolf glared at him and armed his lasers as well. "Don't mess around, Fox. You'll regret it."

Fox didn't blink.

"We're not your average Star Wolf team now, little runt," Wolf began. "We've-" Wolf took a moment to add in a menacing smile. "-talked some people into joining us."

"Hmph. What, an extra fighter ot two? You're _nothing_, Wolf."

Wolf's laser cannons began to flare. "Quiet, pup! You underestimate me. We've acquired extra fighters indeed, that is, if you mean _a whole fleet!"_

Fox widened his eyes. "How did you manage that?"

Wolf laughed lowly. "Some talking, resources, bribes...It's surprising how so many will jump to the occasion if money is involved."

"You're not threatening, Wolf. The Cornerian fleet is more then enough to take out your petty little squad."

Wolf looked down and pressesd a few buttons. "Petty little squad? You're quite mistaken."

A new image appeared on Fox's HUD. Mass amounts of space were filled with brute fighters, frigates, and dreadnaughts. Fox thickened his eyebrows.

Wolf could sense Fox's nervousness, and he chuckled. "Three weeks," Wolf held up fingers, "Before we invade Corneria and take it for our own. Farewell for now, Fox!"

Wolf's laughter could be heard as he cut off the message and sped away. Angrily, Fox fired his lasers, but Wolf was too far away already. The three other Star Wolf members flew around him, Panther giving him a light nudge as they made their getaway. Fox opened his comlink.

"Star Fox Team, that's enough. Head in. We have a situation."

-

--

-20 Minutes Later, StarFox Command Center

--

-

"W-W-WHAT?!"

"Slippy!" Falco snapped at the toad. "Fox is talking."

"A full-fledged fleet," Fox said, shaking his head. "How in Lylat's name did he do it?"

Peppy shook his head as well. "I suppose nothing's impossible."

"But why Corneria?" Krystal asked. "Wolf's never been interested in it before, there's not much there now..."

"I don't know yet, Krystal," Fox told her. "Quite frankly, it make no sense at all. I'm contacting General Pepper. ROB! Get General Pepper on the line!"

There was a short silence, and thereafter, the general's image popped up on the holocom.

"General, I have some news," Fox told him.

The general cleared his throat. "Yes, Fox?"

"We ran into Star Wolf today. He attacked the Great Fox, but he just wanted to deliver us a message," Fox explained.

Pepper nodded. "And what did it say?"

Fox entered a code and the image of Wolf's fleet appeared before them. "He wants Corneria," he said. "They're going to invade the planet three weeks from today."

General Pepper shook his head. "That's crazy talk! He must be bluffing."

"'Fraid not, sir."

"Our troops aren't quite sufficient enough to take on such an ordeal just yet...Not many have signed up for the army since the Aparoid invasion..." the General trailed off, obviously perturbed by his encounters in the war.

"But we can't just wait here and let them invade!" Fox exclaimed.

"I know," Pepper told him. "But we can't just rush in mindlessly, either. I'll have a meeting tonight with some government officials. I'll contact you as soon as possible. Pepper out."

The General's image dissapated, leaving the team hanging.

"What are we to do? The army is still recovering," Krystal said.

Fox slammed his fist onto the arm of his chair. "We've got to think of a plan. The army isn't going to be a big help right now."

Falco leaned up against the wall. "There's not many options, considering we don't know where Wolf is hiding OR where he's keeping the fleet."

Everyone thought for a moment. "If we could just find out where they were keeping their base, we could invade them instead of them invading us!" Slippy let out.

Fox nodded slowly. "That's a possibility, but we have no idea where the base is. And even if we did take them by surprise, we'd still might not have enough troops..."

"It's worth a shot," Falco said.

Fox looked at Peppy uselessly, like he did when he wanted a solution. He felt like a kid again, just hoping that someone else knew the answer. Peppy shrugged. "It might just save us all."

Fox nodded in approval. "ROB, set course for Corneria. "We're going to look for some answers."

-

--

-1 Hour and 45 Minutes Later, En Route to Corneria, Fox's Quarters-

--

-

Fox was watching space pass by from his room's window. It was so dark, so empty. It made him wonder what created all of this. It was just so vast, and it couldn't have just came out of nowhere.

Fox's door slid open, Fox unaware. He was still looking out the window as Krystal sat down next him, looking past his shoulder.

"It's mysterious, isn't it?" she said.

Fox nodded, hiding his surprise. "It sure is...Just like you used to be."

Krystal tilted her head. "I was?"

Fox smiled, and turned towards her. "Of course you were. But, er.. not in the bad way, I didn't mean that," Fox stuttered.

Krystal looked at him for a moment. "I suppose I was, now that I think about it...Tell me, how was I mysterious to you?"

Fox looked around nervously. He couldn't even barely talk to her normally. How was he supposed to survive talking about his feelings?

"We knew nothing about you, or what you were doing on Sauria," he said. "We barely knew your background."

Krystal looked ahead. "It...It's nothing special..." she mumbled.

Fox looked ahead as well. There was silence, for a time.

"You're feeling better," she said suddenly.

Fox leaned his ears back a little. "Yeah...I, uh..."

Krystal giggled. "It wasn't just because of..?"

"No no no, it wasn't that at all!" Fox stammered, caught in the lie. "I had um...done some personal er...thinking on how I was acting..."

Krystal smiled and shook her head. "Whatever you say," she said as she leaned on him. "But just tell the devils on your snout what you really did too, m'kay?"

Fox looked down at his muzzle, seeing nothing there. He wiped it off anyway.

Krystal smiled, unseen. She knew Fox was lying.

"But uh, thank you anyway..." Fox told her.

"For what?"

"Uh, uh, talking to me! That's right, thank you for talking to me."

She held in laughter. "You're welcome."

Fox wiped imaginary sweat off his forehead and let out a sigh of relief.

Krystal got off of his shoulder and began to stand up. As she did, she slid her index finger up Fox's neck and held his chin. "You can thank me again later," she told him as she turned around and walked out of the room. Fox watched her out, and then sprawled back out onto his bed, his cheeks red in embarrassment.

-

--

-**Corneria City Surface Base Hangar, 11 A.M. the Next Day. Star Fox Command Center**

--

-

Fox was once again in his chair, sitting alert. Today they were on a hunt. A hunt for answers. The Great Fox was parked in the military hangar, and the crew was just about ready to set out.

"So, run this through me one more time, Foxie," Falco asked him, dressed in a white t-shirt and baggy pants. "And tell me why we're dressed like this."

"We're asking around about Wolf," Fox told him. "But we'll never get any answers if we're dressed like soldiers. We're going to be taking a new look today."

Falco hunched over. "Fine," he said, and slicked his head feathers back. He almost didn't look the same. He looked more like a gang member or thug..

Fox was wearing a black muscle shirt and black suit pants. It was the only thing civilian-friendly he could find in his closet. He slid on a treasured pair of his father's old sunglasses. He felt sharp-dressed.

Krystal walked out of her quarters, unsure of what she was wearing. She wore a black tank top, and a pair of uncomfortably short shorts. She pulled her tank top down a little, with a 'I look horrid' face on. At this point, Fox was glad he had his dark glasses on. "This doesn't feel right," she stated nervously. "Don't I have anything else to wear?"

Falco snickered. "You could always jump into the rags we found you in on Sauria."

Krystal promptly smacked him.

Slippy, on the other hand, didn't look much different. He had a red t-shirt that said 'GO CCHS VARSITY' in big gold letters, a pair of khaki shorts, and also his lucky football cap on. He had a big smile on his face as he evaluated everyone in the room. "Gee, you guys look totally different!"

Peppy chuckled. "You look like your dad, Fox." Fox smiled quickly and stood up.

"Look for seedy people. The ones you wouldn't normally talk to, the ones that look like drug-attics."

"Tweakers."

"...Whatever, Falco. Look in all sorts of places you might think would be suspicious enough to house a liable snitch," Fox adjusted his glasses. "I'll take the north side of Corneria City, Falco and Krystal, go south. Slippy, since you have transportation, you take the east and west. Star Fox Team, move out!"

-

-

The sleek black hover-car set the team down outside and away from the military hangar. They drove for some while, down southward.

"How come WE have to take the slums?" Falco complained. "I ain't no ghetto-bird!"

"Quiet Falco, do as you're told. And keep close to each other, you two." Krystal shifted in her seat as the car came to a stop and let Falco and Krystal out. Fox waved at them with a salute, and the car drove off again, back towards the north.

A few minutes passed, and Fox told the driver to stop.

"Say thanks to General Pepper for lending this out," Fox told the driver.

As he stepped out, he turned around to address Slippy one more time. "I'm counting on you." He waved/saluted again, and shut the door. Fox stood out on the sidewalk, and a few people passed him. Slowly, he slipped into the crowd, and blended in excellently.

_You can't hide forever, Wolf._

-

-

-


	4. A Fistful Of Answers

_NOTICE: This chapter is to be completely remade after the release of Into the Wolf's Den, Part III. So anyone who is reading now, what happens below is not going to be in the story for very much longer._

_-SOTR_

* * *

**A Fistful of Answers**

-

-**South Side, Corneria Outskirts, 11:15 A.M.**

-

"This bites."

"Now now, Falco, it's not that bad, is it?"

Falco and Krystal took a good look around them. Many of the houses around them were awful looking, moat with graffiti tagged all over them, some with windows broken...Not to mention the plentiful circles of hoodlums and gangsters gathered in alleys and on the corners of streets, along with the occasional plump housewives screaming at their husbands from inside. Krystal shook her head. _Such an awful place._

"We best look for something," she said.

Falco nodded. "Come on."

They walked together down the cracked sidewalk, looking for shady places with shady people. They didn't dare go near the circles of gangsters, for obvious safety reasons.

There was a dog-whistle from a boarding house next to them. "Hey, hey, hey, pretty mama!" a voice beckoned from above. Krystal ignored it and kept walking.

The whistle had attracted the attention of others, who had set their gaze on Krystal as well.

One shouted from a window across the street. "Oo, look at that fine piece of-"

"Can it!" Falco shouted at the hoodlum. "Let's go," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets, and walked faster.

Krystal had to walk at an awkward pace to keep up with Falco, which made her backside feel uncomfortably...mobile. She grimaced as she tried to adjust herself, but in the end, it became worse. More whistles were heard, and she blushed, quite embarrassed. Falco was shouting threats to anyone that called to her, which made her feel somewhat better.

Her and Falco turned a corner down a shanty road, where they were greeted suddenly by a threatening-looking horde of gangster-dogs. They stared at each other for awhile, and Falco, being slick as he was, threw up a sign he knew. The hoodlums gawked at him, and then burst out in laughter.

"Look at dis dope!" one mocked, his accent almost making incoherent.

Falco shot the dog a leer.

One of the hoodlums let out a low whistle. "Dang, sugah mama! Look at this fine lady here, homies!" The other ones laughed with him as he pointed at her. "What say you drop the penguin here and come with me down to my abode," he said slyly, wagging his tail(doggish as he was).

"Ugh." Krystal scoffed. "As if."

"Penguin?!" Falco exclaimed.

"Deee-nied," the other gangsters said.

"Back off her, butt-sniffer! She's with me," Falco defended as he stepped in front of Krystal.

There was a sudden animation behind the hoodlum-dog, as the rest of his 'homies' began to taunt them with all sorts of random noises and hand signs. In truth, they all looked like doofuses.

The hoodlum just stood still and glared at Falco. "What'd you call me, feather-head?"

"You heard me. BUTT SNIFFER."

Butt-Sniffer let out a growl and hurled his fist towards Falco. Falco easily side-stepped it and grabbed his arm. Falco twisted it, and sent Butt-Sniffer over his shoulder onto the ground. Butt-Sniffer retaliated quickly and leaped up at Falco, who began to stumble backwards as Butt-Sniffer began to punch his gut. The hoodlum was staring straight into Falco's unwincing eyes, filled with rage.

"What are you looking at, punk?" Falco spat as he brought his head back and rammed his skull into the hoodlum's face. Butt-Sniffer let out a cry as Falco's beak tore across his snout, and he grabbed it in pain. Falco laughed triumphantly. "That'll teach ya, you lousy-OOF!"

The sound of breaking glass split across the air as another hoodlum held the broken neck of the bottle that had slammed across the back of Falco's head. Falco fell forward, his eyes closing on the way down. Krystal screamed as Falco hit the ground, unconscious. She bent down to help him.

"Falco, Falco! Wake up!" The back of his head was bleeding.

"Look's like you friend's goose is cooked!" The hoodlum laughed at his bad pun, the others laughing with him. "Now why don't you come with me, hot-legs?"

Butt-Sniffer reached down for Krystal, but instead of grabbing her, the hoodlum did the complete thinkable, and instead grabbed something else.

That was the day the south stood still.

Krystal suddenly fell forward onto her hands, pushed off the ground, and sent her legs up, ramming her feet into the unexpecting Butt-Sniffer's face. She landed gracefully, noticing the hoodlum that had knocked out Falco was beginning to come towards her. Krystal side-stepped a hoodlum that had rushed from behind her, tripped him, and as he was still in mid-air, kicked him towards Falco's attacker. They both painfully skidded across the concrete.

She looked behind her shoulder to see that Butt-Sniffer had picked up the broken glass bottle, and was rushing her with it. As he got close, she spun around him, kneeing him in the groin and grabbing both his arms on the way. The bottle fell from the frightened hoodlum's hands as Krystal pulled and twisted violently, hearing snaps. She spun around, and with one final maneuver, she leaped in the air and kicked him in the back, sending him flying.

"WHO WANTS SOME MORE?" She shouted, clenching her fists.

All she saw was a few civilians looking at her, amazed. When Krystal looked at them directly, they went back to what they were doing, obviously frightened.

"Wow," Falco stated.

Krystal looked down at him suddenly. "Falco! You're alright." She picked him up and smiled. "Erm, how much did you see?"

"I saw you kick that one guy in the face, and the rest behind me pretty much hauled ass," he told her, rubbing the blood off of the back of his head.

Butt-Sniffer moaned, startling them. "You guys are dead meat when I tell the boss!" he threatened uselessly as he lay on the ground, his arms broken.

"Wait. Boss?" Falco asked aloud. He bent down over Butt-Sniffer and brougt him up by his collar. Butt-Sniffer looked at him, very scared.

"Yeah, the boss..."

Falco shook him and gritted his beak. "Who do you work for?"

"Like I'm gonna tell ya!" Butt-Sniffer looked past Falco's shoulder to see Krystal looking down at him, cracking her knuckles. "I suggest you speak," she said.

"Okay, okay! I'll spill. His name is Lance. Lance Gillreath. He's a big business syndicate owner guy, he's got some ties with some big dogs, yo!"

Falco looked back to Krystal, and she nodded in approval. Falco turned back to Butt-Sniffer.

"Shut up!" Falco spit in his face, and shoved him back to the ground. "Come on, Krys."

Krystal looked down at the hoodlum for a moment, and before she departed, she gave him a swift kick between the knees.

-

--

-**North Corneria City, 11:23 A.M.**

**--**

**-**

"Interesting," Fox said aloud.

Fox looked up and around at his surroundings, metally scanning them.

Business-people, a few snack vendors, and an occasional bar. Nothing seemed to out of the ordinary. Fox had been walking for a while, and this was about as good as it got. He stepped out into the street to get a better look at the bars, and walked into the shadiest looking one, ironically named "Dark Times Pub."

The door creaked open, feeding sunlight into the darkly lit bar. Some big thugs stared at him for a moment as the bar went silent, and then they went back to what they were doing. Soft music was playing in the background.

The door shut behind Fox as he approached the counter. The bartender eyed him warily, wiping a glass. "Can I help you, sir?"

Fox nodded. "Just a light."

The bartender reached down to a case of beer, and pulled one out for Fox. Fox paid him the credits, and took his drink and sat at the stool. He swiveled around, trying to get a good look on the folks in here. He visually scanned again.

There were two bulldogs, both wearing caps and vest. Probably intergalactic truckers.

Across from them, a female panther and a male lion snuggling. A couple.

Fox took a look to the left, seeing a dog clothed in practically rags. A bum.

And ahead of Fox, a group that consisted of a white fox, two dogs, one oddly colored purple, the other black, and a speckled hyena, all leaned in towards each other, obviously talking about something private.

Fox's interest was caught. He pressed a button on his watch, releasing a fingernail-sized robot with a small microphone implanted in it. Fox observed the minibot crawl underneath the table and up its leg, finally taking rest on the underside of the table. He then tuned in, by pressing another button on his watch.

The hyena twitched a little. "But what about the money, Sidney? We can't go back without some dough," he told the white fox.

"Hmph. Don't worry about it, . Zuzula's got it all taken care of." the fox motioned to the purple dog next to him.

"But what if it don't follow through?" the black dog butted in. "O'Donnell will be steamed!"

Fox about dropped his beer(which he hadn't even opened, he didn't drink anyways). _O'Donnell? Wolf?_ Fox thought. He upped the volume.

"It's _taken care of,_" the fox told the black dog, gritting his teeth. "All of the props are set. Now we just have to wait for-"

"Sidney, this guy's watching us," the hyena whispered.

"What? Who? Oh, okay...let's see what he wants."

Fox leaned his ears back. _Dammit! So close._

The group of four arose from their chairs and made their way to Fox.

"You got a starin' problem, pal?" the white fox said, clenching his fists.

Fox just looked at him from behind his glasses. "What makes you think I'd ever look at _you_?"

The white fox's eye twitched, involuntarily. "You wanna start somethin'? Cause I'm game, Mr. Shades!"

Fox put his drink down, and stood up in front of the white fox, they both met eye-level. The white fox glared at him, and Fox returned the stone-cold gaze, making ihs way to the door. He stepped a few feet outside, and waved his hand, tauntingly. The fox growled, and the four went outside after him. Fox meandered into the alleyway, and when the group saw him, he crossed his arms.

The three three behind the white fox began to go towards Fox, but the white fox stopped them and cracked his knuckles. "Wait up."

"Tell ya what. I'm feeling nice today," the white fox told Fox. "What say...you hand over your wallet, and I'll forget I ever saw anything."

Fox smiled, mockingly.

"Hmph." He reached into his pocket, and pulled out his wallet. He took out a few credits and waved it in front of them. "Sounds like a deal."

Fox threw his wallet upwards towards them, and as they all gazed at it, Fox took the advantage, the element of surprise.

Sidney felt his innards being smashed against each other as both of Fox's feet crash-landed into his gut. Fox pushed off into a backflip, and the white fox flew backwards into the purple dog, who fell down with him. As Fox was in midair, he swung one foot around and drove it into the black dog's skull, who immediately coughed up blood and fell down, quite unconscious. Fox landed, and the hyena stood there, shaking.

"Screw you guys! I'm outta here-BLAGH!" Fox's fist uppercutted the hyena right in the nose, causing him to fly upward and back down onto the ground painfully.

The hyena sputtered tears and blood. Fox grabbed him by the collar.

"Tell me!" Fox shouted. "Who is this O'Donnell?"

The hyena laughed maniacally, fear still protruding from his eyes.

Fox gritted his teeth and socked the hyena in the cheek, the credits still clenched in his fist. "Speak!"

The hyena's laugh shortened. "Blahaha! I-I don't know, Timber or Alpha or something...er, er, WOLF! That's it, Wolf O'Donnell!"

Fox took off his glasses. "Where is he?"

"Dah, I don't know about thay one-" Fox raised his fist. "NO NO NO! I SWEAR! DON'T HIT ME!" the hyena cackled, looking away.

Fox lowered his fist and threw the hyena to the ground. The black dog was still unconscious, and the other two...

"Dammit! Gone..." Fox cursed to himself. He noticed the credits still in his hand, so he pulled his wallet out and shoved them back in. His eyes got caught on a picture in his wallet, and he looked at it, a sudden calm coming over him.

"Like I'd ever let them have this..." He put the wallet in his back pocket, and pressed a few buttons on his watch. "Falco, Krystal, come in. I've found something interesting."

-

--

**-Gillreath Corporate Building, East Corneria City, 11:30 A.M.**

--

-

Slippy hummed a tune to himself as he walked through the marble hallways to the front desk. The young Avian woman at the counter greeted him.

"Hello sir, may I help you?" she asked kindly.

Slippy nodded. "I'd like to see Mr. Gillreath," he said, and pulled up a briefcase. "I have a business proposal."

The woman clicked a few keys on her computer. "Okay, good news, he happens to be seeing clients like you now. You'll find his office on the...31st floor," she smiled. Slippy thanked her and walked towards the elevator. He pressed the shiny call button, and patiently waited for the elevator to come. He hummed his tune.

There was a low sound as the elevator door opened. Inside, there was a tall, bulky black wolf in a snappy suit. Slippy and the wolf smiled at each other as Slippy walked in, his briefcase clinking. There was silence, other than the drone of the elevator.

"Where are you headed, sir?" the wolf asked, his voice very baritone.

Slippy took off his hat. "I'm off to see Mr. Gillreath. I have a business proposal." Slippy patted his briefcase.

The wolf's smile didn't fade. "Well, he's not in his office right now, I think he just finished lunch," he said and checked his watch.

Slippy frowned. "Aw, shucks," he said and rubbed his head. "Do you know where I could find him, perhaps?"

The wolf stuck out his hand. "Nice to meet you, sir! Lance Gillreath."

Slippy gawked at him for a moment, which turned into a pleased smile as he shook the large wolf's hand.

"I-It's an honor to meet you sir, I hope I wasn't er, interrupting an important day. Uh, my name's Slip..er, Alphonse...Alphonse Toad."

Lance laughed, deeply. "Not at all! I've actually been expecting someone like you to come along, Mr. Toad." The elevator door dinged open. "Let's talk in my office."

The wolf's steps were huge. Slippy fumbled his hat and stumbled to keep up with Mr. Gillreath.

The syndicate walked into a large room, and sat behind his desk. Slippy almost tripped on his way in.

"Please have a seat, I'm interested in what you have to offer," Lance told him, and crossed his arms.

Slippy sat in the chair in front of the desk, and put his briefcase on top of it. "Well sir, I'm a engineer myself, you see." he said as he opened his briefcase and pulled out the contents, a chart, and a clipboard containg a bunch of information. Slippy popped the chart open, and began to explain.

"I've been studying models of the standard fighter ships used by the Armed Forces, and with some studying, I believe I have found a more efficinent design that will better suit the ships armor and energy out-take." Slippy flipped a page, and drawn on it was a very high-tech upgrade of the run-of-the-mill fighter ships.

Lance raised his eyebrows and checked a few marks on his clipboard. "Very impressive, Mr. Toad. May I see your printed research?"

Slippy fumbled for his clipboard, and as he was handing it to Lance, it flew from his hands and knocked both of the clipboards to the ground.

"Oh, my apologies, sir! Please, let me..." Slippy reached down for the clipboards, and there was a small flash.

"What was that?" the syndicate asked.

Slippy looked around. "I'm not sure, sir..,"

There was a sudden beep on Slippy's watch. "Slippy! Come in," Fox demanded.

Slippy frantically pressed buttons on his watch to turn it off, and ended up taking it off and shoving it in his pockets.

"Oops, um, looks like I have an appointment elsewhere...er, hang on to this for me, and look it over, please sir?"

Lance eyed him warily, and slowly nodded. "Have a nice day, Mr. Toad."

Slippy waved and walked out. He rushed down the hallyways, and slipped into the elevator.

"Heh heh, thank you, flash-cloning," Slippy said to a device in his watch as he held Gillreath's documents.

-

--

-**The Great Fox Command Center, Corneria Orbit, 1 P.M.**

--

-

"Alright team, status report. Falco and Krystal, how was your end?"

Krystal rubbed her neck, glad to be back in her regular clothes. "It was..."

"We found out something about a syndicate," Falco butted in. "Lance Gillreath. Has big ties with important people."

Fox nodded. "I found a gang of some of Wolf's henchmen. All I confirmed was that they worked for him, though."

"Ha! Then what I have blows you guys out of the water!" Slippy exclaimed, holding up Lance's documents.

Fox gaped at it. "What is it?"

"Official documents from Lance Gillreath himself," Slippy told him, feeling accomplished. "I read them over a few times. I believe it shows where Wolf's base is located."

Fox looked it over, his eyes intense. "Myyphos," Fox said quietly. "Wolf's keeping it all at Myyphos."

"That's foolish," Krystal said. "Myyphos is barren, and-"

"A perfect place to set up a base," Falco stated. "No one would expect one there."

"True. I'm going to contact General Pepper." Fox pressed a few buttons, and waited for an answer.

The General's image appeared on the holocom. "Hello Fox. May I help you?"

Fox nodded. "General, we have a situation."

-

-


	5. Intermission

**Intermission**

_-_

_"YOU DUMB BASTARD!"_

Wolf O'Donnel angrily slammed his gloved fist into Sidney's face, causing the terrified white vulpine to drop to the floor.

"Sir! I-I-I-" he stammered.

"Shut your trap!" Wolf picked him up by the collar. "I thought you knew better than to pick a fight with the enemy undercover! ESPECIALLY Fox McCloud!!"

Sidney sputtered. "B-B-But we didn't know it was him, sir! He was in a disguise, and we-"

His plea was cut off as Wolf threw him back down to the hard metallic floor, his nostrils flaring angrily. "Out of my sight."

Sidney looked up at the terrifying commander, fear spilling from his eyes.

"NOW!" Wolf snarled.

Sidney scrambled to his feet as quick as he could, to avoid being kicked. He rushed down the hallway, and out of Wolf's cold gaze.

Wolf crossed his arms. "Typical McCloud," he muttered.

He strode down the hallway to his office, shoving a grunt to the floor as he walked past him.

-

--

-**9:30 P.M., Great Fox Command Center**

--

-

"Yes General, right away."

Fox wrapped up his conversation with the general and clicked the holocom off. He rose from his chair, and cleared his throat to get everyone's attention.

"Okay team," he started, getting seriousness in his voice. "Wolf has positioned himself and the entire fleet at the planet Myyphos. We don't exactly know where, but our current assignment as of now is to locate it, and with luck, find some enemy intelligence."

Slippy scratched his chin. "Okay, but what if their radar spots us flying in? Say we get lucky and find them as we descend from orbit."

Falco nodded. "Yeah, Fox. We'll be deader than-"

"That would cause a bit of trouble," Fox cut in, breaking Falco's analogy. "But that's a risk we're going to have to take."

"But, hypothetically, say we do fly straight in on them?" Krystal asked. "What would we do?"

Fox thickened his eyebrows. "We would go down fighthing. ROB! Set course for the Tylaylian System."

"Affirmative. Setting course."

The ship turned slightly, and increased speed some.

"Estimated time of arrival to Tylaylian System, 5 days," ROB announced.

Fox nodded. "Plenty of time to plan. Team, freshen up, head for bed."

There was a slight jumble as the team took off in seperate directions. Falco and Peppy headed for the mess hall, Slippy went towards the washroom, mumbling something about turtles and Arwings. Fox was about to head to his quarters, but-

"Fox?" Krystal asked aloud before Fox reached the hallway.

Fox looked back towards her. "Yeah?"

She folded her hands. "I know we already have...but..." She stopped, and swiveled in her chair a bit.

Fox tilted his head, curious. "But what?"

Krystal looked at him for a moment, then shook her head. "...Nevermind, it's-"

"Don't start with that. You made me alot happier and stress-free by talking with with me earlier." He walked over to her, and stood beside her chair. "We can talk, if that's what you want. You act like I can't sense your emotions."

She looked at him, grinning. He smirked.

Fox motioned to his room. "Let's talk in there."

She nodded, and followed him down the hallway.

The automatic door slid open, revealing Fox's dim room. He plopped down on his bed, and Krystal took a seat next to him.

"So...What do you want to talk about?" Fox asked, his sudden confidence failing him.

Krystal leaned back on her hands, her soft cerulean hair gently shifting back as she looked ahead.

She couldn't think straight, which was completely unlike her. She always had a straightforward mind, especially when it came to situations like this. But for some reason, her head was trapped in the clouds, making her unable to speak clearly. Thoughts about her and Fox's encounters earlier made her slightly out-of-it, and she rubbed her temple, precariously.

"Well..." she started, her voice box paralyzed.

She wanted to tell him so badly. So badly, it burned her mind and heart. Why couldn't she find the strength to do it? This was completely out-of-character for her. She had enough courage to make a move earlier, but now, now it seemed that that confidence had faded...Fox must've thought she was a complete fool by now...My, did her head hurt.

"Krystal?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, summing up her feelings. Fox was staring at her, one eyebrow lifted in question.

"Are you alri-"

Fox couldn't finish his sentence as she tumbled into his lap, rubbing her temples in pain.

"Krystal!"

She shook her head. "I'm...okay...just a headache..."

Fox looked down at her, worried. "Headaches are different for you though, are you sure that you're okay?"

Krystal nodded and opened her eyes slowly, looking up at Fox's worried expression. She managed a weak smile.

Fox's heart soared for a moment. Her smiles always did that.

They looked at each other for awhile, Fox's awkwardness finally taking advantage of him. "So, um...What did you...uh..." He leaned his ears back, frightened, almost.

Krystal couldn't help but giggle a bit. Fox's nervousness around her made her realization grow.

Fox rubbed the back of his head.

"Fox..." she asked, her accent fading a tad.

Fox perked his ears back up. "Um, yeah?"

Krystal bit her bottom lip a bit, and her ears tilted back slightly.

_Here it comes..._

"How...How do you feel...about me?"

Fox's pupils dialated. She really caught him with his pants down this time.

"I-I-I uh..." His stammering grew immensely. He felt sweat form around his brow.

"I feel that...you are an important necessity to the team...and uh...you're a really good..."

Krystal shook her head, and leaned her head up towards Fox. Their muzzles brushed as she gave him a quick kiss on the lips.

"I mean, about that," she whispered.

Fox was shocked for a moment, as he took in a sudden realization. All of his fear, his rage, his sadness...He didn't need it anymore...It all left him, leaving his imagination wandering through a dark, empty room, with but a chair sitting in one beam of light. And in that chair, sat Krystal.

He didn't need to act around her anymore.

Fox's eyelids grew heavy, as he struggled to stay in the same world. Krystal was still gazing up at him, her sapphire eyes shining brilliantly, yet still soft with emotion.

"I...think I..."

He quit his words, and brought Krystal up to face him, closely. Both of their eyes met at the short distance, gazing deeply into one another's as their muzzles touched.

"Fox..."

Their muzzles leaned on each other, and slowly made their way to one another's lips. They both closed their eyes, as every ailing part of them left and were destroyed, forever.

Fox brought himself back to where their muzzles were still brushing each other. He looked Krystal in the eyes, and brought his arms around her in a tight embrace.

She leaned his head on his shoulder, smiling, her eyes closed.

"Krystal?" he asked.

"Hm?"

Fox let her go. and turned towards the wall. "I...how long..."

He turned to face her, to find her lying on her side, her eyes closed softly in slumber.

Fox smiled, and layed next to her. She embraced him tightly, even as she slept. Fox stroked her hair, and kissed her softly one more time. His eyelids grew heavy again, and as his eyes closed, a wide smile stretched across his face.

-


	6. Days Before The Attack

**Days Before the Attack**

_-_

_"You know I don't understand completely."_

_"I never do."_

_"It's always shoot first, ask questions later."_

_"Is it really time to change?"_

_--_

**9:30 A.M. Fox's Quarters **

--

The dim haze of sleep began to fade away from Fox.

It felt like he had slept for months.

He must have really gotten a good sleep last night.

Fox noticed as he yawned and stretched that Krystal wasn't beside him anymore. Fox scratched his head and shook the sleep from his eyes.

"Now where did she get to..." he asked himself.

He leapt out of bed, still fully clothed, and walked down the corridor to the restroom. Feeling lazy, he splashed water on his face and changed his clothes instead of fully bathing. It was rare when he did that, his lazy days were few and far inbetween.

Fixing his collar, he stepped into the command room, where Slippy was dozing on the main control panel, Gillreath's documents piled neatly around him.

Fox chuckled to himself. Slippy must have been studying those documents all night. As Fox continued to walk by, his tail brushed one of the piles of documents and completely scattered all of them on the floor. Fox jumped in alarm, and was surprised to see Slippy still sleeping. Quickly, Fox pushed the documents into a pile with his foot.

"Heh, whoops."

Fox's next destination was the mess hall. The mechanical doors opened for him and he walked through.

The mess hall really wasn't much of a hall at all. It was more like a larger version of an employee's lounge. There was a full kitchen to the right and a table with room for the whole team to the left. Everybody usually hung out here instead of the ship's living room because it was "closer to the goods," as Falco would say. Holding that thought, Fox walked over to a kitchen cabinet,pulled out a box of some generic Cornerian cereal, sat down at the table, and began eating straight out of the box.

"I wonder where everyone's at," Fox said aloud, spewing a few crumbs.

"...And I wish I knew how to cook..."

-

--

"Typical of everyone to leave me with ship cleaning. Don't we have robots for this?"

Falco was hanging on the underbelly of his Arwing doing a routine check to see if anything needed to be repaired or fine-tuned..

Krystal was on the other side of the hangar mopping, but she could still hear Falco's complaints. "Stop complaining Falco," she called to him, giggling. "You LIKE doing this. You said it yourself!"

Oil dripped off a part from the Arwing onto Falco's beak. As Falco shifted around, the oil seeped closer to his eyes, and that irritated him more.

"Yeah, well, I don't see you doing anything productive!" He called back.

Krystal put her hands on her hips(as that was her signature move). "I suppose doing the cooking and cleaning for all of you brutes isn't good enough since nonw of you can do it yourselves!" she replied.

"Hmph!" Falco grunted, the oil dripping into his face as he struggled with a tight bolt. "It's the only thing yer good for. That and keeping Fox on his toes."

Krystal raised an eyebrow, knowing Falco wasn't being completely serious. Nevertheless, it got her steamed, but she continued to mop anyways. She wasn't going to be on the losing end of this conversation. She'd get him.

Falco laughed to himself triumphantly. He liked getting Krystal mad. Whenever she was irritated her accent would stick out, and Falco always thought it sounded funny.

"Hey Krys!" He called out to her. "I'll forgive you if you get me something to drink!"

"Don't call me that!" Krystal shouted, her accent becoming obvious. She growled and muttered a few inaudible words as she stormed out of the hangar, throwing her mop down. Falco was cracking up, his laughter echoing about. He dropped his wrench, making a loud clanging noise against the hangar's metal floor. For some odd reason, it only cracked him up more.

"I sure showed her," he told himself, and snorted with laughter, only to snort oil up his nose.

-

--

Fox stopped eating his cereal. He thought he heard something from the hangar. He shrugged and began to eat again, but Krystal walked in right when he had his hand halfway in his mouth. She looked at him, bewildered. She sighed and strided into the kitchen, obviously irritated. Fox put down the cereal and walked towards her.

"Uh, morning..." he said, feeling idiotic. "Um, is anything er..."

Krystal only sneered and pulled out a glass from the cabinet above her, and began to fill it with water. Fox was completely confused.

"Don't be alarmed," she told him, obviously knowing. "It's _nothing_. Hmph."

Fox sighed in relief, aware of the cause. "What's Falco up to now?"

Krystal topped the glass off and began to walk out, not bothering to answer Fox's question.

Fox stood there, cereal crumbs covering his shirt, still completely confused.

-

--

"Mmgrf...Corporate...3 days...Gurgle..."

Slippy woke up to a sticky face and a keyboard covered in drool. All of the documents were all in a messy little pile next to his chair, completely out of order.

"Oh, nuts! I fell asleep at the keyboard again! Ohhh!"

Slippy slipped out of his chair and onto the floor, trying to scramble the documents together in a somewhat organized manner.

The doors to the mess hall flew open, and out popped Krystal in one of her "I'm going to get the better end of this" episodes. Fox followed her out shortly, sipping on a juice box.

"Hey Slip," Fox greeted.

"Oh, hey Fox...I fell asleep at the keyboard again.."

Fox sipped some more. "I noticed. I scooted those documents together for ya."

"Well I could've swore they were all piled neatly..." He looked at Fox in question. "Hey! Those are my juice boxes!"

Fox looked at him. Then without saying a word, left to the hangar.

Slippy sighed. Two more days left until they reached the Tylaylian system, and not one thing had been planned so far. Wasn't it mentioned the sake of Corneria was on the team's shoulders? Maybe things would straighten out later.

-

--

**3:30 P.M. StarFox Command Center**

--

-

There had been a dramatic change in mood since the morning began. Now everyone was hunkered down, deep into strategic thought.

"Now maybe if we came from around-"

"Now wait," Fox stated, cutting off Falco's last sentence. "How can we plan a move on something if we don't even know what it looks like? That's kind of a shot in the dark."

Slippy scrambled through a few documents. "I have a few base layouts and blueprints, but no real answer on where everything is located. For all we know, these buildings could be miles apart."

"Hmm," Fox thought. "It's a decent start. Upload those to the main hologram, we'll study them later."

Krystal spun in her chair, her legs crossed and her head in her hands. She couldn't shake the thought that things weren't going to go as planned.

Nobody else seemed to notice. Arguments and heated words were thrown out randomly. Not a whole lot was getting done.

Peppy, who had been quiet with a headache all day, finally broke in. "Shut your traps! All of you!"

The room quieted down, and the team looked at Peppy.

"So we can establish one thing," Peppy stated, crossing his arms. "We have no idea what the base looks like from the outside, and only a rough estimate on what the planet looks like. All we have is a few blueprints on the buildings and a sketchy idea how things are going to be set up."

"Right," Slippy said. "We know the planet Myyphos has an unpredictable weather climate. It shifts between dry and barren to frozen and isolated quite often."

"And?" Falco blurted out. "Our ships can stand that, and I'm sure as long as we got close enough to shelter we could too."

"But we can't just charge in there," Fox stated. "Wolf has an entire fleet at his command, we'd be obliterated BEFORE we ever got close to the surface."

"So what shall we do?" Krystal asked, rubbing her temples.

Peppy was silent for a moment. "Well, isn't it obvious? We need to get a closer look somehow without being detected."

"So wait...you're saying we send in some sort of...spy?" Falco asked.

Peppy nodded. "In a sense, I suppose you could say that."

That had Fox concerned. "How could we pull that off though? God knows we can't charge the Great Fox that close to atmosphere. We'd be detected by the planet's defense system."

"Now wait a second," Slippy said, flipping through more documents. "Says here the defense system is consisted of a ring of manually-piloted satellites orbiting all around the planet. That could mean..."

"If we could somehow disrupt communication between them for a brief enough moment for a small ship to get through, we could have a slim chance.." Fox told them. "But how could we do that? We'd be seen right off the get-go."

That left everyone stumped.

"Unless..." Krystal said, "We were previously granted access."

"Say what?" Falco jeered. "Crazy talk. Oh yeah, let's just go ask them, 'Pretty please, may we pass through to go destroy your plans for world domination?' Chyeah. We might as well offer 'em freakin' cookies while we're at it. Hmph." Falco leaned back in his chair.

"Quiet, Falco," Fox ordered. "Krystal, you're capable of reading minds."

She nodded.

Fox became stern. "Maybe you could find some sort of access code from one of the sattelite's pilots. We could take it, upload a form of virus to it, and then jam the radar for a short amount of time."

Krystal thought. "I'd be very weak afterwards," she told him. "We'd have to be far enough away from the sattelites to not be detected, but close enough for my powers to reach them."

"There's no way," Slippy announced from behind the documents. "Their radar scans out for about 3 miles, and I don't think Krystal could get a visual from that distance."

"Damn," Fox cursed. "There goes that idea."

There was more silence. "The spy idea is still workable," Peppy told them.

"But the radar problem..." Falco trailed.

"Bah." Fox sighed. "Team, dismissed. Let's take a few hours to think for ourselves. If you think of anything let me know."

Falco headed to the washroom to clean up(as his feathers were extremely oil-stained). Slippy went off to the main control board at the top of the ship. Peppy stayed, as he rarely ever moved form his chair by the bay window. Krystal wandered off mentioning something about her head, and Fox stayed behind as well, leaning his head on his fist.

_"How are we going to pull this off..."_ he thought. _"It's impossible either way around it."_

"Bah." Fox got up and left to his room. Peppy watched him walk off, shaking his head.

-

--

**8:32 P.M. Fox's Quarters**

--

-

Fox was once again gazing out his window into the coldness of space. The Great Fox was passing by a small green planet, that had several rings orbiting it. Looking at it made Fox feel tiny and insignificant.

His mind was still swimming in ideas and strategies. Many of the ideas were brilliant and cunning, but that one factor still kept the ideas from succeeding.

That damn radar.

Fox leaned his head against the cold window, frustration filling his head.

But as always, Krystal walked into Fox's room. She must've sensed Fox's raced thoughts. Fox didn't turn around.

"Yeah, Krystal?"

There was no response.

"Eh?"

Fox turned around. Krystal was standing in the doorway, with her head down. She looked as if she was going to collapse.

"Hey, are you oka-"

Before Fox could finish, Krystal fell forward, towards the end of Fox's bed. Fox jumped to action, but not quick enough. He grabbed just a moment too late; she had hit her forehead on the bed's foot rest.

"Oh no. Krystal!"

Fox turned her over to see her eyes winced in pain. She wasn't conscious.

Swiftly, he gathered her up into his arms and rushed out of the corridor. As he ran by the control panel in the command room, he slammed on the "emergency" button. Red lights and a blaring alarm filled the whole ship as he continued to carry her towards the medical wing.

-

--

_"I don't understand why you don't understand."_

_"It's been so long."_

_"I thought there could be something now."_

_"Ever since the first day there has been something."_

_"But I suppose I'll wait."_

_--_

_-_

_"_Uhn..."

"Hey, she's coming to."

"Krystal?"

"Well look who decided to join us!"

"W-Where am I..?"

The steady drone of a heart monitor and her friends' relieved laughs could be heard as Krystal faded out of unconciousness. Her vision was very blurry but she could make out the brown figure of Fox leaning over the bed towards her.

"Krystal?" Fox asked again.

Krystal smiled weakly. "I'm here Fox...What..happened?"

Fox rubbed the back of his head. "You walked into my room and sort of uh...fell against the end of it.." His voice trailed off.

Krystal attempted a laugh, but she could only frown in pain. "My head hurts very badly," she commented.

Fox patted her shoulder. "Just take it easy for awhile, and you'll be fine." He smiled. "Team, time for bed."

Everyone left, and Fox smiled at Krystal before he turned off the lights.

-


	7. A Rude Awakening

**A Rude Awakening**

-

-

-

It was dark.

The Great Fox's power had been lowered to it's minimum. It was silently drifting through space, rather...absentmindedly, if you will. The only sounds that could be heard were the soft snores of the crew and the occasional beeps and boops from the computers. The shadows twisted around the hallway in eerie forms, twisting and reaching forever.

Krystal was sound asleep in the medical wing, the heart monitor beeping steadily. Slippy was strung out in his bed drooling, once again mumbling random codes and numbers in his sleep. Peppy was shifting occasionally, apparently uncomfortable. Fox lay still, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes closed in tense slumber.

A low yawn broke the silence. "Mmf...shouldn't have drank so much at dinner..."

Falco rose from his bed to make yet another trip to the bathroom.

"Mmf...Where are the damn lights?"

_THWUMP. _"OW!!"

Falco hopped around in the dark, clutching his stubbed talon.

He grumbled as he made his way to the bathroom, and did his business. As he walked out, he caught his reflection in the mirror. "Not too shabby," he grinned to himself, slicking his feathers back and showing his muscles.

"Ohh yeah, the ladies are gonna love me. I can see it now, 'New Hero Stops Star Wolf and Saves Corneria'." Falco laughed out loud. He threw a couple of punches, pretending to beat up that sniveling reptile, Leon. He threw one last punch, but it went just a bit too far. The mirror shattered into a million pieces.

Falco gawked at the pieces on the floor, careful not to step on any. "Oh crap, Krystal's gonna be steamed..."

The last thing Falco saw was the broken mirror rush towards him violently and a stream of blood gush out over his eyes.

-

--

The Great Fox tumbled and roared, throwing everyone and everything around. There were screams and cries from the frightened crew members as they were tossed around the ship like children's toys.

"W-W-What's going on?!" Slippy cried, hanging desperately onto his bed railing.

Fox was struggling to stay in one position. He fell to the floor, landing hard. "I don't know! ROB! What's happening?!"

The terrible roaring drowned out ROB's voice. Fox had to see for himself what was going on.

Standing obviously wasn't going to be an option. Fox crawled out of his room, his blankets still wrapped around his legs. He tried desperately to free himself from them, but the blankets weren't budging. The ship tumbled and flew forward, tossing Fox down the hallway and past the command room. He turned his head at the last second to see a gigantic wreckage colliding with the Great Fox.

"Gahh!" Fox landed against the metal door to the medical wing, breaking it in two. He bounced in, landing in a pile of broken door. He felt himself suddenly slipping downwards and noticed that-

"We're rolling!!!"

There were more screams heard from the other room. Fox gritted his teeth and desperately grabbed at the floor for something to grab but he failed. He slid downwards towards the wall, yelling the whole way down. He landed with a dull thud, and he moaned out in pain.

"Ugh..." Fox winced, and then realized a blue figure was slumped next to him, garbed in a white gown.

"Krystal!"

He quickly scooped her up and saw she was indeed unconcious. He held her close as the ship started to roll again.

_You'll be okay, _he thought to himself, holding Krystal close. The two slowly slid onto the ceiling, when the roaring and rolling finally stopped.

Fox gasped for breath. "T-Team!" He choked out, coughing.

Fox heard the low moans of Peppy and Slippy in the now-above room.

"Status report!"

"I-I'm here..." Slippy moaned.

Peppy grumbled. "I'm here too, barely..."

Fox nodded, even though it wasn't neccessary. "Falco?" He called out. There was no response.

"Son of a..." Fox cursed. Quick;y, he scanned the room to find a way to the command room. The broken doorway sparked above him, completely unreachable. For now, he ignored that dilemma and called up to his team, still holding Krystal in his arms. "What hit us?"

Slippy took a glance out the window. "All I can see is black."

"ROB?" What happened?"

There was silence, and then a short cracking noise as the voice-coms sparked.

"Great Fox was struck by an unknown vessel," ROB reported.

"Can you get us level with gravity?" Peppy asked. "My back can't take this."

There was an acknoweledgement, and the Great Fox began to roll slowly. Horrible rending noises were heard, and the ship stopped.

"We're stuck!" Slippy announced.

The robotic voice sparked out again. "Suggesting shift in ship's personal gravity," ROB said.

"It's the only way we can get steady. Everyone hang on to something!" Fox shouted.

Slippy crawled across the ceiling to his room, and positioned himself over his bed. Peppy was out of luck, and tried his best to aim for a 'softer' part of the floor. Fox laid on his back, holding Krystal close and on top of him. Fox could feel her soft breathing, and her fingers subconsciously stretched across his chest fur. Fox couldn't help but feel a bit relieved.

"Commencing gravity shift in three, two-"

"Whooooa!" Slippy dropped like a slippery green rock, bouncing off his bed in a great somersault. Peppy miraculously landed on his bottom, lessening the inpact of the metal floor. Fox slid down the wall and then the floor, landing on his back, hard. Krystal landing directly on top of him didn't help, plus the fact Fox believed he landed on a needle. Quickly, he ignored his pain carried Krystal into the command room.

"Everyone alright?" Fox asked, limping.

Slippy emerged from his quarters, rubbing his right arm. "Yeah." He then noticed Krystal in Fox's arms, her eyes closed and her head leaning against Fox's bare chest. "Is she...?"

Fox nodded. "She's okay." Unseen, he held her a little bit closer. "Okay, now to figure out what the heck happened. What's the scanner say, Slip?" he asked.

Slippy was dumbstruck. "Scans don't show anything, guys...Nothing on the radar, nothing."

"Well there's OBVIOUSLY something outside," Peppy added, scratching his beard.

Slippy rubbed the back of his head. "I dunno...Say, anyone seen Falco?"

The three had almost forgotten about the avian.

"Split up, it'll be easier to find him if-"

There was a low boop, and the Great Fox went dark yet again.

"Oh n-n-no! I hate the dark!" Slippy quivered.

"Speak of the devil," Peppy thought aloud.

Fox sighed, agitated. Very carefully, he felt his way towards the nearest couch and layed Krystal softly down onto it, making sure she wouldn't fall off. He then clicked a few buttons on his wrist-com. "Falco, report," he spoke into his watch.

Silence. Falco had most likely taken off his com-watch.

"Falco!" Slippy called. "A-Are ya there, buddy?"

Fox then had a plan. He felt his way towards the corridor where the rooms were located. Slowly, he brushed himself against the wall. His outsretched fingers groped a few edges. _First door on the right, bathroom._ He worked his way past two more doors, and then stopped by what he believed was Falco's room.

"Falco, where are you?" Fox asked uselessly. Falco's door was squeaking, apparently broken by the impact. Fox managed to squeeze himself in.

"Falcooo..." Fox murmured, his hands groping the darkness. He shuffled his feet carefully to the left, knowing Falco's bed was directly in front of him. Fox felt random objects stub his feet as he shuffled, and then something on the floor got the better of him and he tripped.

"Argh!" Fox fell faceforward onto a flat metal surface, making an enourmous crash and sending various papers everywhere. Fox could hear Peppy laughing from the control room.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking!" Fox rubbed his muzzle wearily, and slowly got to his feet, only to be thrown down again.

The horrific screech of metal against metal was heard again, and it seemed as if a massive weight was pushing down the Great Fox. There were a few cries, and then it stopped. The lights reappeared, but only dimly.

"ACK! GET IT OFF!" Slippy screamed at the top of his lungs. "HE-E-ELP! ZOMBIE!"

Fox bounded forward in a lengthly roll and burst into the command room. Slippy was on the floor screaming, a half-naked bloody blue creature on top of him.

"Falco!" Fox cried, and rushed to the scene. He lifted Falco's bloody body off of the helpless Slippy, and propped him up against a wall.

Falco was a mess. He was bleeding badly, various pieces of glass protruding from his face and chest. There was also a great swelling in his right eye, where it looked like he had smashed against something.

Peppy was freaking out, which was not like him at all. Fox shook Falco(which probably wasn't the best thing to do). "Falco! Falco! Wake up!"

Falco wasn't responding. "Is he...?" Slippy asked, scared.

Fox grabbed Falco's wrist, and put his thumb on the bottom of it. "He's fine," Fox stated. "But him and Krystal both need medical attention. I'll go and see if I can salvage anything in the medical wing. Can you guys clean him up?"

Fox left, leaving Falco to Slippy and Peppy. Slippy looked at Falco worriedly. The avian looked pitiful, bleeding everyhwere, half-naked.

-

There were glowing, molten lines outside the bay window, evidence that some mass form of metal had been sheared at a high-velocity impact. Slippy stared at it thoroughly, trying to figure out what the hell it was. Peppy was treating Falco's wounds with a washcloth, and Krystal was still sound unconscious, lying on the couch. They could hear Fox rummaging around in the medical wing.

"Where were you, Falco.." Peppy asked the avian, knowing there would be no response. He carefully pulled out a few small pieces of glass from his face, and treated the blood.

A low, painful moan came from Peppy's right. He cocked his head to see Krystal coming to.

Seeing this, Slippy was relieved. "Fox! Krystal's waking up!"

Fox said something, but it was drowned out by a crash and a few curse words.

"Ugh...Fox..." Krystal whispered, in pain. Fox limped up a few moments later, kneeling down by Krystal. She turned to look at him, and Fox could see the pain in her eyes. They sparkled dimly, as if she was about to cry. Fox squeezed her shoulder comfortingly.

"Hi." Fox smiled weakly.

Krystal said nothing, but instead reached her arms around Fox's neck and leaned her head against his chest. "Don't leave me again..." she whispered.

Fox flattened his ears a bit, but held her tighter. "I won't," he said in a voice only she could hear.

"Say guys..." Slippy announced. "I think we may be able to get this thing off of us."

Interested, Peppy acknoweledged him. "And how is that?"

"Well," Slippy said, facing them. "The Great Fox's emergency shields expand out into a bubble, surrounding the whole thing. If it was strong enough, we might be able to push this thing away and into our sights."

Peppy nodded, his eyes following Fox whispering to Krystal. "That seems logical, but the question is, do we have enough energy left to expand the bubble shield?"

Slippy hopped up to the defense grid computer. "Lemme see...energy usage at 33 percent...and since we're stationary, it won't affect the main core too much..." Slippy typed away at the keys. "Say ROB, think you could expand the emergency bubble shield?"

Silence, then acknoweledgement. "Affirmative. Awaiting order."

Slippy gave ROB the 'okay.'

Almost instantly, a bright layer of sectioned light expanded over the ship, pushing the mass object that struck them with great force. At first, it didn't budge, but it slowly gave way over the course of a few minutes. The mysterious vessel that had 'attacked the Great Fox was now in front for everyone to see.

An immense satellite floated in front of them, and it appeared half of it was missing. Layers and layers of metal were exposed to the vaccum of space, still glowing at the edges.

"Oh my," Peppy mumbled. "We're lucky to be alive."

Slippy was busy running scans and such. "Visuals say it was most likely stricken by something. See how the edges are glowing? It must have been hit at a high velocity to just rip the metal apart like that."

ROB spoke over the intercom. "Satellite still is not appearing on radar. My hypothesis is that it is made from an alloy that radars cannot detect."

"So THAT'S why the emergency impact signal didn't go off!" Slippy exclaimed.

"It's a bit too eerie for my tastes," Peppy told him. "Nothing natural could have caused a cut as clean as THAT." Peppy pointed towards the satellite. "It was most likely attacked."

While the others were discussing those matters, Fox had attended to Falco and Krystal. A few tiny medical droids were attending to Falco in the medical wing, and Fox had Krystal snug with a blanket and coffee on the couch in the command center. She was terrified, and Fox had been trying his best to console her. Although, it isn't every night your mothership is 'attacked' by a creepy abandoned satellite in the middle of outer space. Fox reassured her everything was going to be okay.

"Think we should check it out?" the vulpine announced suddenly.

Immediately, Krystal turned to him, her face washed with fear. "No! You can't! I..."

Fox looked at her softly. She returned the gaze, teary-eyed. She did not want Fox to leave her side.

"Maybe we should...just leave it be..." She said, fearful. "I sense no brain patterns."

Krystal was lying, over course. The pilots of that satellite were either dead, or they had evacuated. She shivered in her blanket.

"But that satellite just might have vital information we need," Fox told her. "We can't pass a chance like this up." Fox slipped on his combat-ready suit, which was in a pod on the back wall. "I'll scope it out with the Arwing first, and then-"

Fox groaned in pain, and he clutched at his leg.

"Eek! Fox, you're bleeding!"

Blood was gushing out of a deep gash in Fox's calf. The gash wrapped almost all the way around the back of his calf and to his shin. His fur was matted with the blood.

"Oh, shit. Um..." Fox hadn't noticed how hard he must have landed earlier. Hell, he didn't even know what he cut it on.

But now, Krystal was relieved. The gash was so bad, Fox had no choice but to stay behind.

"Gee Fox, that's pretty bad," Slippy told him. "Maybe you should just go get treated in the medical wing."

"But I-"

Krystal took advantage of the moment. "No arguing," she told him, getting up and leading him into the medical wing. "Let's clean you up."

Peppy and Slippy watched them leave. Peppy then turned to Slippy, smiling coily.

"You know what this means, Slippy?"

"Uh, not really," the toad replied, yawning.

"If we want that information, then _you _have to go get it."

Slippy gawked at Peppy as if he had gone mad. Slippy's mouth was moving but no words were coming out.

"Oh, no no no no, you can't make me! I refuse!"

Peppy put a hand on Slippy's shoulder. "Let's show 'em what you're really made of, son."

Slippy just looked down at the floor, worried. "But I..."

"When you get back, you can call Falco a pussy all you want."

--

--

-

Fox was laying on the bed next to Falco,his arms crossed in a huff. Falco's private curtain was up as the medical droids worked on him, and Krystal was bandaging his leg with a bright smile on her face.

"Your awfully cheery," Fox grumped.

Krystal tied a knot in the bandage, and tugged it hard. Fox gave a little yelp. "Of course I am," she replied to him, a tad seductively. Fox's left ear perked up, aware of her intentions.

Krystal walked over to Fox and sat down next to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing their nuzzles together. The look in her eyes made Fox turn to jelly.

"It can just be us for now," she cooed in his ear, nuzzling his neck. "I've been needing to talk to you anyway._Je kedawxk, zijk mo udt oei."_ She kissed his cheek.

Fox's heart almost stopped. He didn't know what she said, but he caught the words 'you', 'me', and 'tonight'.

He should get injured more often.

-


	8. Spelunking

**Spelunking**

_-_

_"Son, it doesn't matter what people think of you. Just do your best, and you will succeed at everything you try."_

Slippy was staring absentmindedly, recalling his father's advice. Whenever Slippy was young and had trouble, his dad always knew the answer. But now, as an adult, Slippy really couldn't look forward to that nostalgic, secure feeling he found from his dad.

"Slippy? Have you made up your mind?"

Slippy snapped back to reality, shaking his head then turning to Peppy. "Gee, I don't know, I don't think I can do it. I mean, what if there's still something..._alive_ on that ship?"

"Relax, son. We've ran bio-scans a thousand times already. There is absolutely nothing on that ship." Peppy gave him a pat on the shoulder to be reassure him. Slippy looked down, defeated. He sort of recalled the feeling as a child, when it was dark and time to come in but there was something outside he had to go get but it was too dark and scary to get it.

Slippy looked around the mess of the control room. Gillreath's documents were scattered everywhere, there was broken glass from some of the computers, and not to mention the door Fox had flown through littered the place with bits and pieces of sharp metal. ROB had been assigned for cleanup. The android booted his way around the room, cleaning up the mess with a built-in super vacuum cleaner Slippy had installed.

"Are you with me, Slippy?"

Slippy shook his head. "I wish I wasn't."

--

--

Darkness faded in and out from the avian's eyes. He could feel pricks and pokes at various places of his body. White was suddenly all around him, and he noticed the medic droids hovering around him.

"Ah crap, I must've hurt myself."

Falco groaned in the most obnoxious way possible. He looked to his left and saw two figures practically melting into each other, with laughs and giggles accompanying them.

Falco poked his head out of the white privacy curtain, and groaned again. Fox and Krystal looked at him in surprise.

"Can you guys keep it down? I'm tryin' to be injured over here!" Falco shot.

Embarassed, Krystal hopped off of Fox and crossed her arms. "Look who decided to show up," she mocked.

Fox smiled crookedly and gave a short wave to Falco. "Hey buddy."

"Oh, you're injured too, huh?" Falco laughed. "What'd ya do? Stub your toe and get a boo-boo? Bahaha."

Fox lifted the towel off of his leg and showed Falco the enormous gash he recieved. Falco nodded, knowing he was defeated in that department, but he wasn't giving up.

"Ah, that ain't nothin'. I've got-" He stuck his head back in the curtain, where Fox could hear him counting. Falco's head popped out a few moments later.

"I got _eleven _cuts on me, ya big baby. So quit whinin'." Falco grinned.

"Just shut up and get let the droids work on you," Fox laughed. Krystal joined in with a giggle.

Falco shook his head, grinning. "Whatever. Just promise me you're using a rubber." With that, Falco stuck his head back in, folding his arms behind his head. He couldn't see it, but he could tell Fox had his ears leaned back, giving Krystal an embarrassed look while she shook her head.

-

-

Slippy was all suited up in his specially modified yellow space suit. He checked to see if he was missing anything. Utility belt, a blaster for just-in-case moments, some gravity adjusters, a space helmet, a full oxygen tank, his lucky hat, and...

"Underwear. Check. Well Peppy, I think I'm ready."

"Affirmative, Mr. Toad," Peppy said with a grin. "Hangar cleared for departure."

"Uh, Peppy?" Slippy asked, nervously.

"Yes?"

"Bwaaahhh!" Slippy gave Peppy a big fat hug, which surprised the hare. With a laugh, Peppy returned the hug, patting Slippy's back.

"You're gonna be fine, Slippy, I'm telling you," Peppy stated, chuckling as Slippy broke away, trying to wipe away tears but his space helmet wouldn't allow it.

"Now get out there, and pick up anything you see important."

Slippy sniffled, and then saluted with a wave. Peppy returned it, and Slippy walked off to the hangar.

_I'm going to be fine, _Slippy told himself over and over as he walked down the long lighted hallway by himself. _I just gotta be brave, like everybody else. _

"Okay!" Slippy excalimed, breaking into a run. "Here I go!"

Approximately 3 seconds later, Slippy Toad tripped over his own two feet.

--

--

Slippy was now situated in his Arwing, the hangar bay doors opening in front of him. Slippy messed with a few controls, and once Peppy gave him clearance, he pushed the throttle forward and sped out.

Space engulfed the Arwing like a wet, cold, vacuum-packed blanket. "Wow, there sure is alot of junk out here!" Slippy said, avoiding space junk and gazing out the cockpit.

Peppy appeared on the above the controls. "I bet. This satellite was ripped apart. How's the visual on the Great Fox's exterior?"

Slippy looked to his right, towards the Great Fox. "Oh boy, it's awful," Slippy announced, frowning. "There are dents and damage everyhwere. It'll take at least as much money we got from Dinosaur Planet to repair it this time."

Peppy sighed, removing his glasses. "That bad, huh...Well, let's get to your objective."

"Aye aye, cap'n," Slippy pirated.

The Arwing zoomed ahead, towards the sunken satellite. Fear crawled up Slippy's stomach like a bad virus as the immense satellite loomed over him, but he managed to choke it down.

"Initiating Arwing ejection," Slippy said, pushing a few controls and setting the Arwing's G-Diffuser system to "stationary."

Slippy's seat began to recline, until it was fully horizontal. Slippy adjust his space suit a bit, and then counted down.

3, 2, 1...

The seat Slippy was in moved back a little, so the cockpit wasn't above him anymore. He was in an encloded area ahead of the engines, designed for this type of ejection. The seat was then enveloped by a space-proof covering metal, enclosing Slippy inside of a pod. Once it was air-tight, the pod began to lower down and out of the Arwing.

This ejection was mainly for space-travelling purposes when docking options weren't available. Slippy was glad he wasn't that much of a claustrophobic.

Slippy felt the bumps and slides as he fell into open space. The pod walls then began to unlock, and form themselves into flatter surface. Its form was a type of space-modified-self-propelled- boogey board, or the "space surfer," as Slippy nickmaned it.

Slippy checked his tether on the space surfer to make sure it wouldn't fly away. Once he was secure, he positioned himself on the board and began to scoot towards the satellite.

"Hey guys, look at me!" Slippy announced over his headset, doing a small 360.

Everyone was now back in the Great Fox command room, shaking their heads with smiles, watching Slippy in his prime.

"What a trooper," Fox murmured almost proudly, an arm wrapped around Krystal.

--

--

A few minutes passed when Slippy finally reached one of the satellite's many floors. Since the damn thing was practically cut in half, accessing other levels would be a pinch.

Slippy didn't quite realize how immense this ship really was. It was at least 3 times bigger then the Great Fox, which makes the levels of survival with the whole crash scene earlier seem pretty improbable. But now, Slippy had to focus on the task that lay ahead of him: retrieving data suspectable of holding vital information of Wolf's plans/base structure.

But it was so frightening to the toad.

"Why does it have to be so dark?" Slippy emphasized, shaking. He pressed a button on his helmet, turning on a light. He noticed he was still floating, so he pressed a few commands into his wrist-com to apply his gravity adjusters. Slippy landed softly on the floor, and strapped the space surfer to his back.

Ahead of him was a short hallway, with a few random objects scattered in it. Slippy pulled out his handheld intel-scanner, and walked along, scanning anything he saw.

Slippy peeked around the corner to find yet another hallway, this one much longer. "I'm still interested why this didn't show up on the Great Fox's radar," he told the team.

ROB answered him. "As mentioned earlier, the exterior of the ship is made of a material radars cannot translate."

Slippy nodded. "Uh huh. I'll send you some data now." He scanned a nearby wall, sending its chemical formulas and all that jazz back to ROB for analyzing.

Slowly, he made his way down. This hallway had a network of more hallways leading left and right, which was quite confusing. It scared Slippy senseless each time he came upon one. The sudden change in light when it hit the hallway entrances made him yelp occasionally, as did the creaking, grated floor that would occasionally break away.

"I'm not seeing too much, guys. Plus, I'm completely lost," Slippy said, worriedly.

"Well good news," Peppy told him, bringing up some info on Slippy's HUD. "ROB analyzed the material used for cloaking the ship, turns out to be..." Peppy had trouble reading the chemical word. "Well, whatever it is, we have it in our database now, so we won't have many accidents like this from now on."

"Good," Slippy replied, scanning a small jar. "How's everyone doing?"

"Well," Peppy said, yawning, "Fox got a little more work done to his leg, and then him and Krystal went to bed. Falco's still getting patched up."

"M'kay," Slippy acknoweledged. A light beeped on his HUD, asking for a download permisson. "Ooh, ROB got a networking area up! Now I can finally figure out where is where!"

Slippy uploaded the file. "Well, awesome! Now that I know where the main control room is, I should be able to-"

A large mechanical moan made Slippy jump in surprise. Something in the dark hallway ahead of him...was coming staright for him!

"AHHH! CONTACT, CONTACT! HOSTILE!" Slippy screamed, pulling out his blaster. The machine lumbered down the hallway at him at a furious pace. Slippy shot his blaster furiously at it, screaming his head off.

"Slippy! What's going on? What's in there?!" Peppy stood up from his chair.

"I don't know! It's some kinda machine...and it's gonna EAT ME! GAHH!"

Slippy dropped his blaster, spun on his heel, and ran as fast as his stubby green legs could carry him. The machine rolled down the hallway, right on his tail.

"Slippy!!!" Peppy shouted.

All Slippy could do was scream, and run. But worst came to worst as Slippy's luck rang in at the wrong moment. He tripped, falling flat on a grated area of the floor. He turned over to see the machine towering over him.

"NOO!!!!"

The machine collapsed on top Slippy, crashing them both through the floor.

"Slippy? SLIPPY! Come in, come in! Status report!" Peppy demanded frantically.

-

Silence.


	9. Off The Beaten Path

**Off the Beaten Path**

-

-

Once again, darkness.

The entire room was completely pitch-black. No sounds, no lights, but only the miniscule sound of a light breathing. Reclined in a chair, arms crossed and eyes closed, sat the sinister 'cowboy from hell,' Wolf O'Donnell.

Wolf was in a mild stupor, having been awake for the past 32 hours. He was waiting for a very important message, and sporting the chance that message could pop up at any time, Wolf couldn't afford to miss it. There was too much depended on it. Sleep was the least of his troubles now.

A monotone beeping emanated quietly from the computer next to him. The screen flashed up, lighting the small room with a scarce pale glow. A window on the desktop appeared, displaying a large image of a green planet. A voice spoke out;

_"Wake up, O'Donnell."_

Wolf opened his right eye slowly, a grimace stretched across his snout. "I've _been _awake," the lupine muttered.

_"Good. I don't tolerate laziness," _the gruff voice from the computer told him. _"Are they coming?"_

Wolf didn't move nor change his expression, keeping his sight set towards the wall ahead of him. "Should be. I'd expect nothing less from them."

_"In that case, keep my men on full alert. I certainly don't need anymore trouble then what I already have."_

"Are you finished?"

_"Pipe it, O'Donnell. I'll contact you within the next few days." _A small beep rang out, and the window closed. Once again, the room turned to black.

"Yeah. Whatever."

With that, Wolf closed his 'eyes.' He could rest easy...for the moment.

--

--

Slippy! SLIPPY!"

The air in the Great Fox was stifled with tension. Peppy gritted his teeth and slammed his hands down on the control console.

"Slippy! Answer me, gosh darnit!" the hare demanded.

The communications line was crackling static horribly. Fox and Krystal stood in the medical bay door with grim expressions.

The static on the comm. line began to get louder. A few seconds later-

Krchck. _"Hey guys!_ I'm-" Brrztkch. _"bottom floor, but-"_ Chkchp. _"okay!"_

The spirits of the Star Fox Team were lifted with a reassured sigh. "Don't ever do that again, Slippy," Peppy told the frog with a chuckle. "I'm old enough as it is."

Back on the satellite, Slippy was laughing. "Sorry to give you guys a scare! This old shut-down robot fell on me when the satellite turned. I'm a floor down now, and...whew! It's a mess!"

Slippy had found himself in a room filled with scattered machine parts, various pieces of metal and other junk. The robot that 'tackled' Slippy was shoved aside, adding to the heap of garbage. He helped himself up and took another good look around.

_"Anything interesting down there, Slip?" _Fox asked over the relay.

Slippy pulled out his scanner and checked a few things. "Naw, most of it's just old metal parts to the engines or something," Slippy replied. "I'm going to try to make my way to the control room now."

Slippy slipped his way through a few broken down machines, trying to make his way to the exit. He didn't feel as frightened anymore.

His fears slowly crept back upon entering the lower level hallways. Light was completely non-existent, save Slippy's headlight. Piles among piles of metal were thrashed amongst the floor, broken assistance droids buried among them. A few of their lights were still beeping. Upon further scanning, Slippy found everything inevitably useless.

"It is trashed down here, fellas!" Slippy called. "And there's nothing of value to account for. Maybe this whole thing was just a shtick, huh?"

That had Peppy thinking on the Great Fox. "That'd be too much trouble for someone to go out of their way to demolish a satellite for a false lead," Peppy explained, scratching the furs on his chin. "Plus, I highly doubt anyone knows we're coming."

"Yeah, true," Slippy mumbled, shoving a few parts aside. He pulled up ROB's shanty GPS system he recieved earlier, and looked for his destination.

Three floors up, six corridors down, third room on the right. Slippy sighed.

"Okay Slip. Take it easy."

The scenery didn't change much if at all the further he trembled through the dark corridors. There was something, however, that had briefly caught his attention as he raised his blaster toward an inanimate space suit. It wasn't of design he had seen before and stood much taller than him with its abysmal face. He realized he was being silly since whatever was inside would probably have been dead for a long time and lowered his weapon.

Up ahead there was a dim light ahead of him by a few steps coming from an opened door to his far left. Slippy nervously hobbled into a quick run to make his way toward the light and sighed in relief that he was outside the dark. The room had a gaping hole above it and several electrical wires had flopped lazily onto the floor from above. He soon saw that the source of the light was a small computer console on the wall opposite of the hole.

"Hey, I think I might have found something guys!" He reported excitedly as he waltzed to the controls.

The window had displayed a log entry in a date he didn't understand.

Though he couldn't care much for that part, but read a bit to see if he could make clear what had happened on this ship. 

It didn't seem to be useful after all, Slippy decided, and tried to look for more information. Unfortunately with the ships power in disarray he couldn't connect to the network and download anything useful from his location. However, with this monitor working it did mean there was some power still running. Though he was curious as to why this monitor had been left on. Perhaps someone or something was nearby? He shivered at the idea and hoped for the best.

_"Slippy, how are things going along at your location?"_

The sudden sound of Peppy's voice over the radio had caused the toad to jump in surprise.

"Er, everything is alright," he managed to say in a meek voice. "This console I've found doesn't have anything useful in it. I'm going to try and climb these wires up towards the control room. I think if I take this route I'll be closer than just wandering around in this…dark…scary…place."

The hare chuckled and answered, _"Don't worry too much. There are no life readings within this satellite so there's nothing there than can hurt you."_

"Ah, I hope so," he replied as he moved toward the falling wires. Upon closer examination he saw that they were of varying thickness; there were some basic electrical wires and then thick cables as wide as his arm. He gave one a tug on one and looked up at the hole above, seeing that it was still holding tight to whatever was above. Well, here goes, he thought to himself as he grabbed higher with his other arm and slowly climbed up, using the thicker cables that were clinging onto the wall as a way to steady his ascent.

_Heh, if only the others could watch me now_, he chuckled to himself. He was known for being the least athletic of the group and as he slowly climbed to the room above he couldn't help but feel a sense of pride in his current accomplishment. Taking a deep breath, he stopped at his current height to examine what was in the current room.

Light from his helmet beamed forward in his viewing range, showing what looked like some sort of large recreation room. A television which had been mounted onto the wall had fallen onto the floor, the screen displaying a spider web of cracks. He could easily make out a few tables, a trashed vending machine and lounge chairs next to him. Though it was interesting to gawk at, it wasn't why he was here. Looking back above him he continued climbing higher till he got to the floor above him, the wires originating from this room. Slippy brushed his thighs with his hands as he got back on both of his feet.

"_Slippy, you there?"_

"Yeah?"

_"We're getting some strange electronic reading near you. We don't know what it is just yet so we need you to be careful wherever you're going now."_ If he was concerned his voice didn't exactly seem to show any.

"What…kind of readings," whined Slippy. "Nothing too dangerous, right?" Instinctively he looked around his current surroundings looking for something to jump out at him. He was surprised to hear Falco's voice come from the radio.

"_Slippy be careful! The sensors are picking up something has been following you for a while now. If you don't hurry you might have some trouble!"_

"W-what?!" He looked behind him and could swear he had heard something on the floor below. Ignoring what ever was in the room, he bolted out of the door and through the corridors. His map display was showing that he was quickly making his way to the control room which was now on his current floor. Had he slowed down he would've seen the debris on the floor were shattered remains of armor and weapons, and also the few dead bodies that were still freshly scattered in nearby rooms. Ahead the lights on the hallway were lit. Seeing this as his best bet, he pushed himself to run faster and once bathed in the white light he looked for a sort of door terminal nearby. It was behind him and he quickly mashed a few buttons blindly until the darkness was blocked by a thick, sliding metal door.

"_Were you really running?" _Falco's voice laughed over the radio.

"Of course I was!" exclaimed the toad through heavy breaths. "How far am I from that thing you said was following me?"

"_Oh that. Yeah…I was just bored so I made it up. Besides, you were taking too long."_

"…You what?" Slippy couldn't see that Peppy was shaking his head while softly chuckling himself, but the majority of the cast had found the joke amusing. He, however, did not. "Are you SERIOUS!? I just ran for my life for nothing? Ugh…FALCO! I won't be helping you repair your ship for a while now!"

"_Whatever you say, haha."_

"_Alright, in all seriousness now,"_ began Peppy, who wasn't hiding his own laughter,_ "Just how close are you now to the control center?"_

Slippy raised his sights. "Uh, I guess I'm here!"

A overview of the satellite's control center showed that this room was the least trashed of them all. A few very dim lights were on, and the rubble amongst the floor wasn't too bad. Upon further inspection, Slippy noticed that there was one computer still running.

"I found a working console. Analyzing now."

Slippy plopped into the chair in front of the computer. The screen came to life fo an instant before the screen froze in a flash of blue and then dimmed itself. Random text and numbers began to pile onto the screen.

"Ah, bummer," Slippy said. "The computer's trashed, no accessible files...wait, what's this?"

A tiny light began to emit from a sensor at the top of the monitor, beaming onto a little pad below the keyboard. Slippy watched as data and numbers began to pile on top of each other until a holographic image was created. The image was of a female canine. To his surprise, the image looked directly towards the frog.

"Whoa..." Slippy gawked, poking at the image. "An artificial intelligence unit! Guys, I think I just found this ships' AI!"

"Greetings!" the AI announced brightly. "I am this vessel's main intelligence unit, model MCC-667, but you may call me 'Aurora.'"

"Hi there!" Slippy said with a smile. "What are you still doing on this satellite? It's almost been completely destroyed, dont'cha know?"

Aurora's light gray image flickered for a moment before she spoke. "Yes, I understand. However, I can not leave. My fate is sealed when the reserve power is gone."

Slippy thought for a moment. "Excuse me," he told the AI.

He took a few steps back towards the wall, and opened up a comm. line. "Peppy? Fox?" Slippy whispered.

_"We're here, Slippy."_

"Copy. I think this AI I found might be of some use to us," the toad explained quietly. "Permission to bring it with me?"

There was a brief moment of silence. _"Well, alright. We'll see you in a bit. Over and out."_

With a smile, Slippy turned back towards Aurora. "Say, how would you like if I brought you along with me, Aurora?"

The AI looked at him for a moment, its expression unchanging. "Bring?"

"Yeah!" Slippy told her. "That way, you won't disappear with this satellite! What do you say?"

Aurora was silent for a while. "But, I am model MCC-667 Aurora, made specifically for this vessel..."

Slippy fumbled with his utility belt for a moment and then held out a USB connector in front of the AI's image. "I know what you are, Aurora. But I can er, save you! You can come and live in our motherboard!"

Suddenly, the satellite moaned, beginning to turn. The lights flickered, as well as Aurora.

"I suppose I have no other option. I accept your request..."

"Slippy. Slippy Toad."

"I accept your request, Mr. Toad," Aurora said calmly.

Slippy smiled once more, and plugged in the chip to the computer. He waved to Aurora as she disappeared into his hardware. Once the procedure was complete, he opened another comm. line to his team.

"Alright guys! I'm on my way back! I think this will have us set!"

There were a few mild cheers over the relay. _"Job well done, son," _Peppy commented enthusiastically.

_"Yes Slippy, we are all very proud of you." _Slippy was surprised to hear Krystal's voice.

"Jeez guys, you're making me blush!" Slippy told them with a chuckle. "I'll be back in no time!"

With that, Slippy closed the relay and promptly fell over.

04-04-2150 SGFT

Captain has us merging races with the Lylatians and our own, despite the many disagreements the majority of the crew have. Personally I see this as a chance to get to know this other race better but it's typical that humans pride themselves above everyone else. We were surprised with the sudden arrival of a bounty hunter along with the famed Lylatian treasure hunter, Atlas…I didn't get to talk to them but they seemed to be in a rush…that's odd, the station alarms just went off…I'll continue writing later.


	10. Arrival

**Arrival**

-

Slippy must have recieved at least a hundred pats on the back when he returned to the control room.

The faces of team Star Fox were dreary but happy. Falco's injuries were looking better, if you prefer mummies that is. He had so much gauze wrapped around his head it should have been considered a fire hazard. Fox was in a pair of shorts, a lengthly bandage wrapped around one of his legs, Krystal still in her white gown clinging on to Fox's side.

"Way to go son," Peppy congratulated Slippy with a brief hug. "We knew you could do it."

Slippy chuckled. "Well gee Peppy, it wasn't THAT impressive."

"Seriously gramps," Falco intervened. "That would've been a cake-walk for me or Fox. I bet we wouldn't have gotten this much glory if we had busted our butts in there."

Ultimately ignoring Falco and his fresh remarks, Fox limped up to Slippy with a weak smile. "You did good Slippy. Got that info?"

"Oh, yeah!" Slippy presented the port before Fox, who snatched it with eager paws. "You're telling me this little port is holding that entire artificial intelligence unit?" Fox swiveled it around, inspecting it closely.

Slippy nabbed it back and waltzed over to the main interface board. "Yeah, where have you been the past few decades or so?" He slipped into a chair with a smirk. "You guys are going to get a kick out of this. You hear that ROB? You're going to have a new friend!"

ROB scooted into the room and faced the eager-faced Slippy. "Friend," he announced. "Alternative word: companion. I do not have 'friends,' Mr. Toad."

"Aww, sure ya do! We're your friends!"

"Friends. I do not believe my programming supports this file."

"Bah," Slippy grumbled, waving a hand at ROB and turning to face the interface board. "You guys ready to meet Aurora?"

"What a pretty name..." Krystal trailed off.

"Affirmative Slippy. Plug her in...or whatever. Let's get all the intelligence we can," Fox ordered.

"Aye-aye, cap'n. Inserting transfer port now." Slippy quickly pulled the cap off the port and inserted it into the interface.

"WARNING, WARNING!" ROB began to blare an alarm, his visor blinking red. "ANOMALY DETECTED IN GREAT FOX INTERFACE! REQUESTING TERMINATION!"

"Ack! No!" Slippy yelled, trying to dull the blare of the alarm. Fox, along with everyone else, were clutching their ears. "ROB! Stop it! Stand by, stand by!"

The alarms died a few seconds after. "Captain, there is a hostile program in the ship's interface," ROB explained.

"No no, ROB! It's just Aurora!" Slippy tried to explain as Aurora's image began to appear on the interface board. "See?"

"Threat detected. Requesting termination."

"ROB, stand down. This AI unit is not hostile," Fox stated.

"Heh heh, sorry guys. Forgot to properly ready the database so the alarm wouldn't go off. My bad," Slippy apologized.

"Ahem!"

Slippy turned to find Aurora's small gray image gazing at him. "Is there a problem?" She inquired.

"Oh, hey there! Uh, no, we just forgot to inform ROB over there that you were er, coming."

Aurora peeked over at ROB, whose gaze was set directly on her. "I see."

"Aurora, I'd like you to meet my friends. This is Fox, captain of this ship, the blue one is Krystal, this is Peppy, and the grumpy guy in the back is Falco!"

"Hey!"

"Greetings, Star Fox team," her small voice announced.

"How does she know who we are?" Krystal whispered to Fox, who replied with a shrug. He walked up to the gray image, leaving Krystal behind to stare.

"So, Aurora," Fox started. "I understand you were that satellite's artificial intelligence unit. Can you tell us the history of that vessel?"

"Yes. I am model MCC-667 artificial intelligence unit Aurora, I contain all history and files that were entered into the database on the satellite. "

Fox looked around to his crew members, then back to Aurora.

"We have a few questions to ask you."

-

* * *

-

"Affirmative. The bait has been taken."

"_Very well done, O'Donnell," _the monotone voice spoke. "_That satellite was a clever idea."_

Again, Wolf was in the same dark room with the lone computer. Leon and Panther were accompanying him this time.

Wolf scoffed. "They were wasting space anyways. So are you going to tell me what this whole damn thing is about instead of filling me in step by step?"

The voice, to Wolf's surprise, laughed. _"How amusing that is that you mention that. The answer, however, is no."_

Wolf slammed his fist onto the desk. "You know, I'm getting real sick of this whole deal," Wolf growled. 'You tell me what the hell is going on now, or I'm through."

_'Ah, but you wouldn't do that, remember? You have too much at stake."_

Wolf sat up as if he was going to say something, but his words failed him. Next to him Panther and Leon were exchanging worried glances. A low growl escaped Wolf's throat.

_"Your next objective will be one you've been waiting for a long time," _the voice from the computer explained. _"McCloud and his team will most likely be at my base tomorrow by sunset. If Aurora has done her job correctly then you are ordered to eliminate them."_

Silence. And then Wolf spoke.

"Affirmative."

_"Don't you dare fail me, O'Donnell."_

"Hmph."

Wolf closed the line, the blue glow of the desktop spilling across the faces of the Star Wolf team.

"Well Wolf," Panther murmured. "What are we going to do?"

Wolf stood up, opening the door to the way out. Light flooded the once dark room.

"Absolutely nothing."

-

* * *

-

"You can DO that?!"

Aurora's image smiled at the beaming faces of the Star Fox team. "Affirmative, Mr. Toad. All I need is to be fully installed into this ship's motherboard."

"Am I hearing you right?" Falco spoke up. "Are you saying you can cloak us from their radar?"

"That is correct, Mr. Lombardi. By entering the motherboard I can use the data in my libraries to coat this vessel in the same material as my previous one."

"Well that saves us a whole deal of trouble!" Peppy said with a smile. "This will make gathering intelligence much easier."

"It sure does," Fox stated. "But there's still the deal of-"

"Fox?" Krystal whispered. "I need to talk to you."

"Uh, one sec, guys."

Fox and Krystal left to the back of the room, leaving the others talking to Aurora. Krystal pulled Fox close, her suspicious eyes looking into his.

"What is it, Krys?" Fox asked.

"I don't trust it."

"What? Why not?" Fox peeked over his shoulder, watching Aurora explain to Slippy how she was to do the procedure.

"Fox, I don't think it's safe," Krystal told him, gripping his arm. "I mean, she knew who we were, what reason is there to doubt that she could just be...a trap? You saw how ROB reacted to her...and plus, I think she was the reason for my incident earlier..."

Fox shook his head. "I don't doubt your intuitions Krystal, but I'm disagreeing with you on this one. This AI just might be our ace in the hole. We can't afford to let an opportunity like this slip away. Don't you know Corneria is at stake here?"

Krystal's expression was helpless. "But...Fox-"

"Krystal." Fox gazed her down.

She looked into his stern eyes for a good five seconds before slipping away from him with a sigh. Fox watched her walk to another corner of the room, observing Aurora. Fox shook his head again before returning to his previous conversation.

"Well, how long will this cloaking procedure take?" Fox asked, looking at Slippy.

"About 3 hours," Slippy answered. "She says she needs permission to enter the motherboard, though."

Fox looked at Slippy, to Peppy, to Falco, and then to Krystal, who just stared at him.

"Permission granted," he said with a nod. "ROB, ETA to planet Myyphos?"

"Estimated time of arrival: 27 hours."

"Perfect," Fox announced, crossing his arms.

"And that just leaves one problem," Peppy said, raising a finger. "How are we going to gather the intelligence from the base?"

Fox put on a courageous smile. "I know exactly what to do."

-

* * *

**-29 hours and 48 minutes later, approximately 6:30 p.m. standard time, somewhere above a Myyphos jungle- **

-

"Uh, are you sure about this Fox? I've agreed with your decisions up until now, but..."

Fox zipped his battle pack up and rested it upon his shoulders. He was clad in camouflaged special ops equipment.

"This recon bug won't get interception way up here in the Great Fox," Fox explained to everyone. "I've already explained the whole situation. I'm air-dropping down to the surface a few miles away from the base until I find a position where I can control this baby-" he shook the orange-sized mechanism in his paws, "-and still be in a safe spot."

"You're nuts, McCloud," Falco told Fox with a laugh and a pat on the shoulder. "Goin' down there expecting to get enemy intel while injured. You got brass balls, buddy."

Fox smiled awkwardly at Falco's interesting comment. "Thanks buddy.'

"Alright Fox, you look ready to go," Peppy told him, giving him one last look over. "You know what to do if you get spotted, right?"

Fox nodded and patted the holster strapped to his waist. "Don't worry, old-timer."

"Gee Fox, you haven't done an air-drop in a long time," Slippy commented. "Are you sure you'll be okay?"

Fox gave Slippy a reassuring pat. "After witnessing what you did on the satellite, I've got no reason to be afraid."

Slippy grinned at Fox's comment. Fox turned his gaze over to Krystal, who was standing to the side of everyone else with her arms crossed. Their eyes met, but Krystal turned away first.

Fox shook off his sudden feelings and faced his teammates. "Wish me luck, guys."

-


	11. Into the Wolf's Den, 1

**Into the Wolf's Den, Part I**

-

"Alright Fox. Cleared for drop in 2 minutes."

"Roger."

The vulpine stood at the edge of the Great Fox hangar, patiently awaiting the laser field to drop. Looking below Fox saw the dense overgrowth that was the Myyphos jungle. Green, rich in foliage...oddly enough, it seemed serene, peaceful. If it wasn't for the fact that there was a sinister evil running itself here, Fox would've considered this place for a later time. Maybe for a vacation, or maybe even...

Time.

Time wasn't on the Star Fox team's side right now, and it hadn't been since the start of this whole fiasco. To think, Fox could be on Corneria right now, out on the town with his friends, maybe even on a date with Krystal, just enjoying the peaceful days to the fullest. Fox was starting to realize how much a hypocrit he was becoming as the time kept passing. He claimed he wanted action, wanted adventure, wanted something...fulfilling.

Krystal.

She had always been there, Fox realized upon reflection, since the start of this whole ordeal. From the day he stepped off his Arwing with those useless documents, through all the trouble of finding this location, and even when she had patched him up on the Great Fox. She had been there in his lowest times, and he had been completely oblivious to the fact that she wanted to help him. Fox supposed he got what he asked for; here's the action he wanted, minus the woman he had utterly adored since he first laid eyes on her.

He had his chance. And now, he had this. He tried to ignore the blaring pain in his right leg.

"Son of a-" Before Fox could finish he felt the Great Fox rumble a little beneath his feet and he bumped his head on the wall.

"Ouch, what gives Slippy?" he asked through his comm.

"Sorry Fox, you look a little tense down there. Are you okay?"

Fox peered over to the jungle below him. "Yeah...I'm fine," he lied.

He was the complete opposite of fine right now. In fact, he even felt nervous. But why? Was it because of the altitude? No, Fox was a space pilot. He wasn't afraid of heights. Was it because of the task that lay before him? Of course not, Fox had taken on huge bands of space pirates and dinosaurs single-handedly without a second thought. But this new feeling in the bottom of his stomach was indeed there...question was, what was it from?

"Lowering hangar shield...you sure you're okay Fox?"

The laser shield that protected the inside of the hangar from the outside elements slowly dilapidated, a strong wind rushing in and pushing Fox back a step or two. He caught a whiff of the outside air. _Smells like shit._

"Yeah. I just...haven't done a jump in a long time." Fox subconcsiously secured the parachute on to his back, poking his head outside and getting a good view below. There were a lot of trees- hopefully not too much of a problem.

"Best of luck, wise guy," Falco told him. "Come back in one piece, eh?"

"Yeah Fox, be really careful down there. You know what to do if you get-"

Fox cut Slippy off before he could finish. "I know. It won't get to that."

"We trust you Fox. Come back safe, you hear?" Fox could hear Peppy in the background, as usual. "Krystal, do you want to wish Fox good luck?"

Fox cringed. He could almost hear her shaking her head.

What had he done to make her so irritable? Fox swore every time he put himself out for the team she got upset. Here he was, about to go risk life and limb for vital information that could decide the fate of their world, and she was pissed at him. About a fucking _hologram._ Fox gritted his teeth. If it wasn't for Wolf...

Fox threw himself out of the hangar before he could continue thinking.

The immediate force of air against Fox's body was incredible and almost painful. Air was scarce, making it hard for Fox to breathe. His stomach leapt up into his throat as he fell, his body starting to flip a bit. He had to hold onto his goggles to keep them from flying off.

The air rushing down his throat was freezing, and it stung like crazy. Fox tried breathing through his nose but that wasn't working very well because of all the flipping he was doing. He continued to tumble through the air, desperately trying to gain a solid position. He flung out his arms and legs in a spread-eagled stance, lessening the speed at which he was dropping. He finally got control of his aerial stance, the rushing wind making a deafening roar past his ears.

He turned his head to see what should've been the Great Fox- instead, nothing. Aurora's cloaking system not only made them invisible to radar but to eyes as well. _She did a good job...and Krystal thought she was trouble. Beh._

Ground was coming at Fox fast. He groped for his release strap and yanked it. To his relief the chute opened and the tug of it assured Fox his landing would be safe. _Whew, _Fox thought. His stomach finally settled, seemingly leaving a burning sensation in Fox's throat. He hadn't realized it, but he had been screaming the whole time.

_Wasn't too bad..._he thought.

Fox took a good look around from the air. All he could see was an endless jungle. The trees below him were getting closer, probably around 150 feet away. He hoped nothing intelligent had spotted him.

"Shit." Around 100 feet up Fox noticed there were no clearings for him to land in; he would be forced to land in a treetop. He tried to look for a less tree-populated part of the jungle, but to no avail. The treetops' leaves and branches were already scraping past his boots. He was still sinking, until...

"ARGH!" an outstretched tree limb leapt out and attacked Fox's right shin, a dull pain shooting up his bottom half and joining with the already searing pain of his injured leg. His body stopped in midair and he was now lowering into the tops of the trees. Fox felt assorted branches, limbs and leaves against his legs as he sank. In no time the thick green leaves were now up to his armpits. He brushed them out of the way and looked downward to the jungle floor.

"You've GOT to be kidding me."

As Fox continued to lower he noticed that he was a good 20 feet or so off of the ground now, the drop below him free of branches. The parachute was caught on the canopies above, letting Fox dangle uselessly. The vulpine sighed.

There were no branches within arm's reach, and there were none below to catch him. There was no way Fox could cut his straps and be assured a safe fall. Falling from this height could easily consist of broken limbs, and with luck, death upon impact.

No. This wasn't going to stop Fox McCloud. Fox tapped into his resourcefulness and asserted his gaze towards the two trees closest to him. While the sturdiest branches that could support his weight were much farther away from him, he was pretty sure if he got a little motion and inertia going he could swing himself to the branches.

He tried it. Sticking his legs out forward, he grabbed his parachute straps and started to propel himself back and forth, like a child on a swing. Pretty soon he got a good motion going.

But the branches were still too far away. Fox scratched his head. Then, an idea struck him.

He could get this same motion going, and then if he timed it right, he could cut his straps and sail himself towards a sturdy widowmaker. It would be extremely risky, but it seemed the only other good option besides falling straight down.

He swiped out his survival knife from his side, securing it in his left hand. He would have to be leaning a certain way when he cut the straps or else he would end up flailing about and hitting the ground hard. Fox shifted his body to an awkward position, aiming his rump towards the branch so he could leap out towards it when he cut the straps.

The straps! There were two of them, he couldn't cut them both at once! Fox cursed out loud and tried to figure out an alternate solution. He could feel the muggy humidity of the jungle air forming sweat around his brows and forehead.

"Got it!" He snapped his fingers and readied his knife. He was going to swing a few times, cut one strap, and then on the next swing he would cut the other one and project himself to safety.

"Nice try, trees, but I'm too smart for ya." Fox began to swing again, positioning himself in that awkward stance once more. Three more swings. Then two, then one.

With a quick slice the first safety strap was gone, resulting in a jolt that sent Fox awry. He flailed his arms as he felt himself lower to the left, but the other safety strap came to his rescue. Fox sighed in relief and clutched his remaining safety strap with both hands.

It was now or never. The other strap wouldn't hold his weight for long, Quickly, Fox swung again, and when he felt the time was right...

_SLICE!_

Fox again went into freefall, but something was wrong. He wasn't moving fast eno-

"Oh _SHIT_!"

Fox's cranium met with a branch of the tree abruplty, knocking him silly and sending him downward. He felt his arms and legs bruise against the branches that struck them, horrible pain leaping through his whole body. Fox was blind in the 3 seconds he was falling; everything was a blur of green. Fox felt his lungs practically collapse and his spine almost break as he bounced off one more branch and hit the ground hard- directly on his right leg.

Fox had never screamed so loud in his whole life.

He could feel it. He could feel the bones in his right leg ripping out of the flesh and fur and the eager river of blood jet out of the wound. He screamed and writhed in utter agony, his piercing scream frightening the frail wildlife that occupied the treetops. Tears were coming to his eyes, and the pain was continuously constant and agonizing.

He couldn't look at it. He had learned from experience that if you look or acknowledge a wound, it gets worse. He didn't want to see the bones sticking out of his leg, he didn't want to see, nevertheless feel, the blood that poured from the opening. Fox found himself sobbing. The pain was just too much.

He had to get it treated, stat. An open wound like this would surely be another victim of gangrene in no time. Hastefully Fox's eyes darted around, looking for his survival pack he had brought with him. He found it above his head. He unzipped it and delved his hand in, pulling out the first-aid kit he had packaged. With great strain he sat himself up, cut the lower half of the right leg off of his pants, and got his first look at his new, fresh injury.

Fox had broken bones before, but this one took the cake. There was an inch of his crimson-stained shin popping out of the thin skin above it, glistening horribly in the sunlight. The pain worsened; Fox gritted his teeth and pulled out his medical tools.

He realized he couldn't treat it. The bone was still sticking out of his leg. He was going to have to push it back in.

"For the sake of Lylat, why have you done this to me...son of a bitch!"

There was no getting around it. Fox found a stick off the ground and clenched it between his teeth. He put a hand over the bone and was already feeling the immense pain that was to come. A few tears fell down his cheek as he readied both hands above the bone.

_Come on Fox, you've been through worse. You can do this. You...are a man. No- you're more then a man._

"I'm a HERO!!"

With great force Fox slammed the bone back into it's rightful place, blood spraying like a fountain from the push. The pain was _indescribable. _

"YEEEAAARGH! GOD DAMMIT! GAAH!!"

Fox wrenched his body in and out, the pain sending him into convulsions. His arms were shaking, his legs were numb, all he could feel was pain. Horrible, undying pain. In a frivolous frenzy his hand wreathed around in the first-aid kit until he found the object he was looking for.

Quickly Fox jammed the needle into his left arm, letting the sweet euphoria of relief cleanse his body. The advanced morphine was taking quick action, the pain dulling in Fox's lower appendages at a fast rate.

He found himself panting, the stick previously in his mouth now in two pieces beside him. He spat out the little pieces of wood and sat up, letting a hand place itself on his sweaty head.

"Why...didn't I...do that...blah..."

Fox took a few moments to catch his breath. His body was ridiculously numb but that didn't mean the blood had stopped flowing. Trying his best to ignore his new jelly-like limbs he pulled out some antiseptic, gauze and other wound-cleaning tools from the kit. He soaked up some of the fresh blood with a cloth and then treated the gash with some antiseptic liquid. It bubbled furiously as he applied it to the deep wound, making Fox gag at the sight.

Next came the hard part-stitching it up. Fox was primarily worried on how well the stitches would stay. If he didn't do a good job, the wound could reopen and cause a big load of trouble. He had never had to operate on himself like this.

Fox's left hand casually drifted to his side, where he felt his blaster. Another idea sparked in his head.

Fox's blaster was made specifically for rapid fire, doing a lot of damage over time. There were setting changes on it to variate the intensity of the rays fired though. If he got his gun hot enough, he could work a scheme straight out of a pulp fiction movie and seal his wound over with heat.

He was just crazy enough to do it.

Fox disregarded the idea that his situation could get worse and spun out his blaster. His numbness made him drop it a few times, but he tried his best to iron his grip and aimed towards a distant tree.

_POW POW POW!_ Fox pulled the trigger a few times, bright red rays of energy shooting out towards the target. It was going to take a lot more then that to get the underside of it hot enough though.

So, Fox kept pulling the trigger. The rays mostly hit the tree, but from the occasional recoil a few stray rays went loose. Fox didn't care, he had a mission to do. After about a minute of nothing but firing, he felt that the time was right. His ears were ringing quite annoyingly.

The underside of his blaster's barrel was steaming a little, the color of red heat covering it. Wasting no time at all, Fox cleared off some more blood from his leg and brought the barrel onto his wound.

Fox silently thanked all of the scientists in the galaxy for creating the advanced morphine. Fox felt literally nothing as the red-hot barrel traveled over his large gash and sealed it, singing his fur and leaving some of his skin a crumbly black.

"Glad that's over," Fox sighed, holstering his blaster. He wrapped his leg over in gauze, braced it with a few pieces of equipment from the kit, and then wrapped it in gauze again. Fox was pleased with his resourcefulness.

"Fox to Great Fox control center. I've touched ground." Fox was still rather numb, which made his voice slur slightly.

"Excellent Fox," Peppy's voice crackled over the comm. "You didn't have any trouble, did you?"

Fox glanced at the parachute tangled in the canopies above, then to the tree, and then to his leg.

"No. None at all."

"Roger. We've sent you the coordinates of the base to your communicator. Be careful, soldier."

"Ha. Fox out."

Fox really needed to cut this lying habit he was getting.

He studied the new coordinates on him communicator with a frown. A three mile walk, northwest. Straight ahead of him.

With a sigh Fox holstered up all of his gear, picked up a decent sized stick suitable as a crutch, and headed towards his destination. He found walking extremely difficult- since the bone is his leg wasn't completely back in it's original spot, Fox had a horrible limp that would probably be extremely painful once the narcotics wore off. He was just glad he didn't feel anything now.

Well, that wasn't completely the truth. He was indeed feeling something- the heat of this dense jungle. The canopies would occasionally open, beaming down steaming rays of harsh sunlight. Fox was already sweating after all the trauma he'd just been through, and the bugs were loving it. Left and right, Fox was slapping himself silly trying to get rid of all the annoying little insects.

Gazing at his surroundings, Fox was almost surprised at how untouched this jungle was. Even though it was ridiculously hot and putrid smelling, it was a gorgeous sight to the eyes. Beautiful foliage and plants, long, outstretching trees, vibrant colors, pestering bugs...something Fox wouldn't find down on Corneria.

He trudged along through the dirt and plants, his movement awkward and jumbled. Fox was relying heavily on his stick for support.

"Freaking trees."

It seemed Fox was his only friend as of late. He reflected again on his recent past as he trudged through the wilderness, all the negative thoughts making him grumble to himself. His mission had just started and he was already almost out of commission. He tried to utterly disregard his broken leg, but that was rather impossible to do. The brace, the makeshift crutch, the huge sear mark...it was going to hurt like a Venomian anglar-fish bite later.

That reminded him. After Slippy had come back with Aurora, Fox had jumped the gun on coming down here. Parachuting down into hostile territory, sneaking into a minor military base and stealing intelligence from his arch-nemesis? Of course. Fox was all over that. But perhaps it was his secret vendetta feelings on the inside that had made this decision for him...

His backpack was sure starting to seem heavier. More and more beads of sweat traced Fox's eyebrows. Seeing as no one was around, Fox let his tongue roll out in a relaxing pant.

_Ha, look at the great hero of Lylat now..._

Fox didn't like to call himself a hero. It made himself feel arrogant. He was just merely doing his job as a soldier. Protecting the innocent at the risk of his own safety.

But Fox wasn't a soldier. He was a mercenary. For _hire._

"Freaking satellite."

Fox whacked a nearby plant with his stick in a quick act of frustration, almost sending him to his clumsy demise. The Great Fox now needed repairs beyond the cost of what it took to save Sauria from flying off into fragments of space-shit. That's all he needed. _Less _money. When the whole start of this fiasco was _about_ money!

Ah, Sauria. A peaceful, lush planet with an odd resemblance to Myyphos' jungles. Fox remembered landing there, meeting the dinosaurs, Tricky, saving countless lives, ending many...and all without his blaster. All he used to save that planet was a stinking staff.

Krystal's staff.

If Fox had to blame something for this, it was that damn staff. If he would've just complained a little bit more, he would have gotten his way and owned Scales in no time. He wouldn't have ever picked up the staff, met Tricky, went up that fateful day on Krazoa Palace to see the stunning blue vixen caged in the mighty blue crystal before him...

What was he thinking?

Krystal was the best thing that had ever happened to Fox. She was kind, compassionate, eager, understanding, beautiful...Fox had admired her ever since he laid eyes on her. And when the feelings grew from admire to passion, Krystal was right there next to him, eager for the next step. But of course Fox was nervous. He was just so afraid he was going to mess things up and lose the one thing that filled the empty hole in his heart that his family had once occupied. Fox dreamt of living a life with Krystal, settling down on Corneria in a scenic home, just enjoying each other's presence. It was close, no matter how far it seemed to be away. All it took for that life to happen and come true were three simple words...

But no.

"Freaking women."

A stray plant leaf smacked Fox upside the snout, getting his attention to the real world once more. He had walked a long way since he had started what felt like minutes ago. The area around Fox was progressively getting thicker, making his steps even more jumbled. He could feel the effects of the advanced morphine beginning to wear off...which meant the pain in his leg would be coming to kick him in the pants, and _fast. _He checked his coordinates to see how far away he was from the base.

DESTINATION- .47 MILES

_Dang, that fast already?_ Fox shook off whatever negative thought wandered around in his head and put on his game-face. It was time to get serious. This mission could easily determine Fox's visiting time here in the living world.

"Fox to Great Fox. About half a mile away from the base. Still no visual yet. Over."

_"Judging by your coordinates, there should be a foothill not too far away from you. Use that to get a good visual, but stay out of sight. Over."_

"Thanks Peppy. Fox out."

_A foothill, huh?_ Fox peeked through the trees, eventually finding the upward slant in ground. The trees and vegetation were so thick, you almost couldn't tell where there were rises and depressions in the ground.

It wasn't too large of a hill, but the slope was a bit steep, so Fox would have to put some effort into his climbing skills. He took his first step, and-

"OUCH!"

The notorious burning sensation filled Fox's leg once more. Right at the bottom of the hill.

Well, there was no use in complaining. Wearily Fox groped his way from tree to tree, using each of the trunks as support to lift himself further. There wasn't too much strain on his bad leg, so Fox thanked the vegetation for that. Lugging himself upward with his arms was quite a workout though, and soon Fox found himself on several occasions flat on his back out of breath.

The top of the hill opened up, giving Fox a breathtaking view of the immense jungle that laid before him. Just like his coordinates said, about half a mile away and slightly to the left was a single story building compound that had a pretty large landpad with some small warehouses around it. Fox could see little tiny figures; not many but some walking around out there. He remained prone to the ground, just in case.

"This is going to be harder then I thought."

With some strain from his leg and a weight dropping into his stomach, Fox McCloud descended into the jungle and towards his objective.

-


	12. Into the Wolf's Den, 2

**Into the Wolf's Den, Part II**

-

"Pthbt! Yuck! Ptoo!"

A stray bug had found refuge inside of Fox's mouth, Fox having to have accidentally gritted his teeth at that time. A broken leg and bug guts. What a combination.

Fox was still prone to the ground, the foliage and tall grass of the slope actually keeping him well hidden. He could hear mechanical whirrs just ahead of him now.

_Game time._

"Fox to Great Fox, I'm at..." Fox poked his head above the grass for a second. "...the ass end of the base right now, out of sight."

_"..And you don't know what to do. Not a problem, Slippy will have some schematics and blueprints down to you shortly."_

"Uh, thanks Peppy," Fox whispered.

An acknoweledgement tone from Fox's wrist-com rang. He took a quick look through it. Judging from his current position, he was about 120 yards from an actual entrance. Fox was going to have to find a postition out of sight so he could start his "infiltration."

Taking another peek through the tall grass, Fox found a small enclave of trees to the right of him, a bit farther away, where another portion of jungle started. Fox started crawling.

He could hear voices now, only faintly. He slithered through the grass towards the three trees that were all bent backwards, as if they were being pulled down by some earthly force. It made a perfect rendezvous point for Fox; he wasn't visible and if trouble started to brew, the thick jungle was literally five feet away from him.

"Alright Wolf," Fox mumbled, pulling out his backpack and removing equpiment, "You've had a good run. Now your ol' buddy Fox is gonna get you back." He pulled out the orange-sized mechanical bug and set id down in front of him, turning it on with the remote control. Four sharp legs popped out of it's spherical surface. The small screen on the front of it buzzed warmly. A few letters appeared on it.

**-GREETINGS-**

**-I AM THE ALIAS:3-**

"Alias:3? Well, you're a cute little guy aren't ya?" Fox tapped the bug's screen. It jumped back, whirring and shaking itself.

Fox took a deep breath and leaned himself against the enclave of trees. The bark was rough and pointy on his back, but he was already too tired to care. His leg was throbbing now. But it wasn't time to give up just yet.

"No problem."

Fox gripped the remote control, which actually wasn't very complicated. Slippy had made it rather layman, with one big joystick, a screen in the middle to see through the eyes of the machine, and a variety of buttons. A, B, X, and Y. There were a few others with numbers, but those four were the ones that were most important, Fox was told.

The Alias:3 was stomping around a little lizard, who was trying to desperately escape from the pointy legs of doom from the bug. Fox gripped the joystick, bringing the bug back to control. Peering through the "Alias" screen, Fox officially began his mission.

The Alias crept along through the tall, lush green grass while Fox furiously studied the blueprints that were sent to him. The text on his com-link was ridiculously small, and he had to strain his eyes to see anything.

"Alright...should be a back door..." Fox studied the Alias' view screen. "...Right there."

And indeed, there was. A simple door on the end of a corridor that ejected out of the base. Emerging from the grass, the Alias peeked around and observed the surroundings.

So far, so good. No guards around. However, the door was, rather rudely, closed.

"Hmm." Fox squinted and messed with a couple of controls. A thin, tentacle-like apparatus emerged from the back of the Alias, the tip of it spinning and collapsing within itself. With the press of a few buttons, Fox now had a makeshift lockpick.

"Sweet."

The apparatus reached up, inserted itself into the door's lock, and opened the door just a tiny smidge. Fox held his breath. The viewcam showed...

Nothing.

The hallway ahead of the Alias was that of a typical office buidling. Shiny white floors, white walls with no decoration, and occasional rooms variating from wall to wall. It was a rather thin hallway; Fox noticed that the base was made up almost entirely of corridors like these. But most importantly, the hallway was empty.

Wasting no time, Fox moved the Alias towards one of the closed doors. Fox was hoping for a computer, book, or file of some sort- anything at all that could contain precious enemy intelligence.

Almost as easy as the first, the Alias opened the first door on the right and mosied right on it.

The room was small. Directly in front of the bug was a desk, to the right, a bookshelf, and behind the desk, another bookshelf. The whole room could probably fit about 4 people.

Sheesh, what was Wolf running here?

Fox mashed a few more buttons and the Alias' screen lit up and began to scan everything in the room. Nothing important in the bookshelves, and from the Alias' view there was no computer.

But, there was a chair.

Fox positioned the Alias in front of the chair and promplty pressed the 'A' button, making the Alias do a small leap into the chair, and then onto the desk.

Nothing.

_Dammit. Not even any documents? Sheesh..._

The Alias hopped down back to the ground and began to make its next trip across the hallway. Fox took a second glance down the hallway, and then proceeded to pick open the door.

Instead, the door swung wide open, knocking the Alias square into the previous room. _Shit! _Fox thought as the view screen blurred.

A lupine guard outfitted in complete obsidian gear strided out of the office room in a great rush, taking fast strides down the hallway and out of sight. Fox peeked the Alias outside to make sure he was gone.

"Close one."

Luckily, the door was left wide open. Fox wasted no time.

The room was the exact same as the last; two bookshelves, one desk, no computer. The Alias hopped back on top of the desk again, and to Fox's surprise, a piece of paper was resting there.

Scanning it, Fox found only numbers and data. There were a series of cryptic numbers all formed together in some odd fashion, not making a whole lot of sense but definitely relevant to something.

"Fox to Great Fox, may have found some cryptic bypass code. I'm sending up now." Fox did so, waited a few moments, and then got Slippy's reply.

_"Jeez Fox, this isn't binary code or anything! It's just crap!" _The energy in the toad's voice startled Fox a bit.

"Just taking some precautions. Scan it anyway."

_"Bah."_

The channel closed, leaving Fox by his lonesome again. He piloted the Alias towards the door.

Fox was expecting this to be a lot more exciting then it actually was. Sure, it wasn't much of a time to be messing around, but the thrill of a mission had always been there. But this time...not as much. Whenever the team got missions back in the day, Fox would always get this funny feeling in his gut that gave him the drive to complete anything. He never gave anything as much as a second thought; General Pepper's image of Fox and Co. was "shoot now, ask questions later." But that was the truth.

Was that really so bad?

The Lylat Wars. Over the course of 3 weeks, Fox, Falco, Peppy, and Slippy made the fight to Venom and took down Andross and the majority of the Venomian Army. Retook planets. Saved others from utter destruction.

Dinosaur Planet; Sauria. Fox and company, minus one Falco, were hired to investigate what was causing the forced separation of the planet. Whilst at the same time, unexpectedly taking down the fierce tyrant General Scales and saving one of the most important figures in his life, Krystal.

The Aparoid Invasion. Team Star Fox defended the Lylat System from a surprise invasion from the sinister parasites known as Aparoids, eventually teaming up with Team Star Wolf and destroying the enitre Aparoid Colony by delving into the heart of their own planet and injecting the apoptosis serum into the Queen Aparoid herself.

Now, Fox was sweating his ass off with a severly broken leg, hiding in a dry, loathsome hovel trying to steal intelligence from right under someone's snout. And yet...

He was _bored. _Irritated, even.

"Heat's probably just getting to me," Fox thought aloud. He found that funny; Fox always had some incessant need to talk to himself about anything he was doing. But that was just him.

Something new was on Fox's mind. Near the end of the Aparoid Invasion, Wolf and his team had actually lent a hand to Star Fox and almost gave their lives up trying to make a passageway for the Queen. If it wasn't for the previous bounty on their heads, Star Wolf might've actually become heroes.

So why was Wolf threatening to invade Corneria?

It made no sense. Wolf's intentions were unfathomable, and Fox wasn't about to spend precious time worrying about it right now. They were on a countdown to doomsday.

Bringing himself back to cruel reality, Fox again maneuvered the bug across the hallway and into another cramped room. There were about four more doors left on this corridor.

Yet again, nothing. Fox repeated the cycle three more times. Look, scurry, pick, scan, get disappointed, repeat. Fox was inside the last room, jumping up onto the desk to see if anything was up there. The bug took a jump and landed on top of something soft...paper!

"Score."

Underneath the Alias was a decent sized pile of papers, neatly stacked with some apparent significance to them. The title on the first page said-

"Who the hell left all of these doors open?!"

_Uh oh. _Fox quickly fastened his grip on the controls and promptly panicked. One of the bug's legs went awry and knocked the stack of papers off the desk into a fluttering mess. With no time to think, Fox hid the bug underneath the desk, hoping the shadow of the chair would hide him. A few papers were still floating towards the ground.

He heard the heavy steps come into the corridor. There was a pause inbetween as Fox heard the guard stop and close a few doors next to him.

"I swear, I'm going to kill Moone for making me do this..." Fox heard the guard say. His heart jumped when he heard the guard come into his room.

"What the...who did this?"

Fox creeped the bug ever so quietly towards the very corner of the desk, watching the guard's boots pass in front of the enclave for the desk's chair. The boots stopped, as did the guard, as he bent down picking up all the papers with a agitated grumble. Fox held his breath.

"I leave for 5 minutes to take a piss and someone goes around opening all the doors and messing up my shit. If Moone did this...Ooh!"

The guard slammed his fist on the desk, making Fox yelp from his location. He threw a paw over his mouth for no good reason.

Everything went silent on the Alias' side. Fox sat there, practically crapping his pants. Did the Alias have some kinda of voice-speaker system?

"...Now I'm hearin' things..." the guard said to himself. "Must be that purple shit O'Donnell puts in our rations..."

Fox heaved a world-weary sigh(to himself now, of course). He was almost in the clear.

Until...

One stray paper whirled in a downwards spiral underneath the desk...right in front of the Alias.

_Shit! Shit! Shit!_

The guard lazily bent over to pick up the last piece. Fox was mashing buttons on the remote in a hysterical frenzy.

The guard grabbed the paper, looked up, and met "eyes" with the Alias.

"What th-"

_Pssssshhht!!_ The Alias produced a small tube from it's front and ejected a plume of noxious white smoke right into the guard's face. The guard hit the floor without a word, knocked out cold.

"Holy damn," Fox heaved as he threw himself against the base of the tree in a pant, the remote control dangling from his hand. "Fox...Fox to Great Fox...had an encounter...barely taken care of...everything fine now. Gah. Have some information up to you soon."

_"Jeez Fox, take some Midol already. You sound like you just tried to inhale a cow!"_

"Screw...off...Falco..."

_"Fox! Are you alright?"_

Fox shook his head, trying to drain himself of all the bad mojo. "Affirmative. I was about to scan some documents when a patrol came in a spotted me. I took care of him with some of that emergency...knock-out stuff." There went the professional tone of his voice.

_"Ah, that. Aren't ya glad I thought ahead? Hehehe. Send up those documents whenever you're ready. buddy."_

"Roger. Sending now."

Fox had the Alias scan the pile of papers that were now on the floor. After a minute or two of processing, Slippy called back down.

_"Gosh, good find Fox," _Slippy started, a hit of rejuvenation in his tired voice. _"Seems to be some kind of written plan...Operation Lavender? Weird name. I'll let you know if I find anything important. You keep low, keep searching. Slippy out."_

The com-link switched off, and Fox was alone once more.

He hadn't realized how hard the humidity was affecting him. His fur was damp with sweat and moisture from the thick jungle air. Each breath clouded his lungs. His leg was on fire from the throbbing. Carefully, Fox rolled up his pant leg and checked his wound. He changed his bandages, spun down his pant leg, took a quick sip of water from a jug in his backpack, and picked up the remote control.

Fox didn't doubt he'd found something pretty important. He didn't want to skip out just yet though, he wanted to confirm he had got his work's worth on this little "vacation" they'd been on. Fox just wanted to go home now. He was tired, he was done. But first, he was going to get Wolf exactly what he deserved...somehow.

"...Freaking bad guys."

-

-

"Leon! Panther! Keep it down!"

Wolf hurried his teammates into the familiar room, soundly closing the door behind them. Wolf locked the door, took a look around, and then relaxed.

"He's here Wolf, just like planned," Leon told the lupine. "Now what?"

Wolf held up a hand, gritting his teeth through a whisper. "I said keep it down. This place is bugged. We can't blow it now."

Leon nodded his head in apology.

"Now, listen up. We have to try and make this as easy as possible. We can't let those dickweed patrol units know that we're...well, you know."

"Yes Wolf, we're aware of that," Panther murmured. "But those...agents you hired..."

"Oh, Sydney and that lot? Dead weights. Big mouths. Had 'em stationed on the satellite we planted...before we disposed of it, of course."

Leon snickered. "Wow Wolf, you just gained a few points in my favor. So how are we supposed to plant the bait with all these dingy mutts running around?"

"McCloud's resourceful enough, he can pull through. I'll pull a few strings for him if I can. Although, we'll have to dispose of Aurora later. She'll have direct links with Gillreath when they enter back into Cornerian airspace, so I'll activate this-" Wolf pulled out a small device-"...and that should be the end of that."

Both of Wolf's teammates nodded their heads in agreement, a stifling silence filling the room.

Wolf sighed and leaned against the door, crossing his arms. "But...I don't know what we're going to do after that. We just have to rely on McCloud...for now."

-

-

Fox had been skimming through hallways for a good half an hour, checking every room he came up upon. He hadn't had too many close calls with guards, and he'd been careful to close doors after he checked them. Thus far, he hadn't found anymore intelligence. Just some open books, and an occasional Paint picture on some of the computers where the guards had obviously gotten bored.

The whole base was practically office space. Except for the landing pad outside, this place could've passed as a 2-bit cubicle job down on Corneria. Fox laughed at the thought, half expecting bitchy receptionists to round the corner with mugs of coffee.

"And last room...done." Fox piloted the Alias out of the room and closed the door.

"Fox to Great Fox...I'm uh...done searching the base. I've found literally nothing since last time."

_"Really Fox? The blueprints say there's two stories."_

"Two stories? Slippy, this base has only one story. I've combed through all of it."

_"Not what I'm seeing Fox."_

"But I-" A loud bang of a door to Fox's right cut off his sentence. Quickly, Fox hid the Alias underneath an end table in the corner of the hallway, hiding in its shadow.

At the far end of the hallway Fox was on, a set of metal double-doors was being propped open by two guards on both sides. The door led outside to the landing pad. There was a loud metallic commotion going on though, much like a bulldozer or crane lifting something up.

And then Fox saw it. The painted surface of the landing pad began to retract into itself: opening! A few moments later a couple of obsidian-garbed patrols rose out of the ground on a large elevating surface.

"Ah, it wasn't two stories! This place has a huge basement!" Fox exclaimed over his comlink.

_"...Oh. Wouldja look at that. I was looking at the paper the wrong way. Sorry Fox."_

Down on Myyphos, Fox was shaking his head.

_"Wait up a minute, there's a few schematics in here," _Slippy told him.

"Schematics? Of what?"

There was an eerie dead silence over the comlink. _"Oh no.."_

"Slippy, what?!"

_"Fox...they're building...a superweapon!"_

Fox's leg actually throbbed at those words. "Son of a bitch, are you kidding me?! What kind?! Dammit!"

_"Fox, this doesn't look good," _Slippy explained, his tone rushed, scared. _"A weapon of this magnitude could cause annihilation on a worldly scale."_

"W-What?!" Fox stammered, his eyes bugging out of his head. "Wolf's going to threaten us with a superweapon?! Slippy, what else does that schematic tell you?!"

_"I don't know Fox, this is only few pages of it, it doesn't tell me much. You're going to hate me, but I'm going to need a complete scan of this thing."_

Fox was silent. His hands skimmed through the grass, digging into the dirt fiercely and ripping out chunks.

"You want a scan?" Fox grabbed the Alias' remote. You've got one."

_"Fox?"_

Fox's ears perked up. "K-Krystal?"

_"...Be safe...good luck."_

Fox felt a tingle reach up his spine, and a flurry of heat rise up in his stomach.

"Thanks."

The comlink closed. Fox had to think of a way to get downstairs, and fast. The doors at the end of the hallway were now propped open with no guards. Creeping down the hallway, Fox took a peek outside.

A total of about 6 guards were carting a couple of crates onto the elevator. The last two guards were about to dolly a crate over, but it fell over and the lid burst open, spilling out a few metallic parts.

Fox saw his chance. While the two guards sat there yelling at each other, he practically flew the Alias outside and quickly into the downed crate. The Alias' legs retracted into itself.

"God dammit Gnecco, I thought I told you to be careful with these crates. Those scientists down there will bitch at us if anything's messed up!" One of the guards yelled as the other was picking up pieces and shoving them into the crate.

"Can it, you asshat. I'm workin' on it." Fox's screen was black as more pieces were thrown in and the lid was sealed back on.

"Do I need to put you on ice duty again? I swear-"

The guards' argument was drowned out by the clanging and banging of the metal parts around each other. Fox hoped the Alias wouldn't be too damaged by the time he got down there. If Wolf's men were treating their materials like this, that superweapon probably didn't hold much of a chance of being very threatening, either.

Fox heard a rumble. He assumed the elevator was going down now. He quicklt set the remote aside at his stakeout and pulled up a comlink.

"Fox to Great Fox, I have made my way to the underground facility. We're going to do it guys."

There were a few cheers from the Great Fox's end. _"It's probably a bit early to be celebrating, but great job Fox. You're almost done. Go get 'em!"_

"Copy. Over and out."

Another rumble was heard, and the familiar clanking sound began again. As the Alias was being carted off, Fox swore that in the blackness of the screen he saw something scurry over the lens.

"Alright, set 'em down here. Hey Prof! Here's your shipment."

The excitement in Fox's gut was getting him motivated again. He was going to _disown _this mission.

"Ah, good!" A nasaly voice emanated somewhere from above. "We'll get to work right away, give Mr. Gillreath our regards."

The lid of the crate was pushed open, and Fox could hear parts being taken out. Light shined in from above. Fox's heart skipped a beat when a pair of hands picked up the Alias.

"Now, what is this?" The feline scientist meddled with the Alias, spinning it around in his hands. "This doesn't look like something I ordered at all..."

Fox prayed to every god available that the screen wasn't a two-way system. He could see the scientist looking it over, but he sure hoped the scientist couldn't see him.

Then, the screen was covered by purple. Something purple. And scaly.

"What do we have here?" Fox could hear the scientist saying. "It seems we got a little passenger in our cargo. Hey Ricky, look at-"

All Fox heard after that was a hiss, a scream, and dull thud. The Alias dropped to the ground, bouncing off the concrete. Fox got a wide visual of what happened.

The scientist that was just holding the Alias was on the ground, covered in blood and convulsing. There were a few other scientists garbed in white lab coats yelling and hopping around a purple little beast that was hissing at them.

Fox was in awe, but he wasn;t letting aything hold him back. Hastily he turned the Alias around, finding exactly what he came here for.

Before him lay a gargantuan mass of construction; what appeared to be an almost fully completed superweapon. It was at least 50 yards long, striking a close resemblance to Fichina's climate-control towers.

With pandemonium ensuing behind him, Fox scanned like he'd never scanned before. He heard the screaming come to a stop, and heard the rushed footsteps come his way.

"Come on come on come on!!"

_Ding. _**"SCAN COMPLETED."**

"YES!"

Fox's spirits rose, only to be shot down in a blazing defeat. A pair of hands swiped up the Alias.

"This isn't a part, you fucking morons! This is a reconnaisance unit! We've been infiltrated! Set the alarms!"

The viewscreen of the Alias blurred; Fox heard a sickening crack, and the screen went blank.

Fox sat there, looking at the remote control's viewscreen, jaw agape. He could hear Slippy shouting at him through his comlink. His grip on the remote intensified until the remote cracked and fell to pieces before Fox.

Without saying a word, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a bandana, tying it around his forehead. With struggle, he lifted himself to his feet...

And pulled out his blaster.

-

-


	13. Into the Wolf's Den, 3

**Into the Wolf's Den, Part III**

_-_

Things weren't doing so well up on the Great Fox right about now.

_"Gosh darnit, Fox, answer me!" _Peppy demanded, leaned over the console by the communicator.

Fox, down on Myyphos, paid no attention to his elder's demands. His blaster was in his hands, and that was all he needed right now. The entrance to the base stared at him from a distance, beckoning his entry.

_No Fox, don't act crazy now. You've come so far._

Agitatedly, Fox holstered his blaster and opened up his com link. "I'm here, Peppy, I'm here!"

_"Just what the hell is going on down there?" _the hare retorted. _"What happened? What did you do?"_

"The Alias was discovered," Fox growled. "I'm going to get it back."

_"Fo-"_

Fox hastily shut down the com link and poked his head from around his hovel. He contemplated running in, shooting everything, then epicly running out with the Alias and getting beamed up to the Great Fox.

His leg reminded him otherwise.

There was an audible alarm ringing very loudly, echoing throughout the jungle and sending all sorts of wildlife scattering. There were probably guards and personell all over the place.

"God dammit, what am I supposed to do?" Fox said to himself. "It's gonna take some kinda miracle for these alarms to shut off..."

The alarms stopped blaring. Fox's ears perked up in surprise.

"What the?"

Little did Fox know...

-

-

**Inside the Base, Current Time**

**-**

**-**

A door flew open somewhere in the base, a large boot imprint cracking it's surface. Covering his ears and grimacing in discomfort, the Lylat System's most wanted lupine charged out of his room.

"What the shit is going on in here?!" Wolf screamed over the sound of the alarm towards a guard in the hallway.

"Sir! There's been an intrusion!" The guard yelped. "All alerts have been set to high-"

Wolf roared. "I don't give a damn! I can't even hear myself think! Turn it off, NOW!"

"But sir!"

"NOW!"

Hesitating, the guard looked around for a deactivation switch, soon finding it on one of the metallic walls and flipping the blaring alarms off.

"Christ, that's better," Wolf gruffed, shaking his head. "Hey, I ain't done with you yet." He grabbed the leaving guard by the collar.

"Uh, y-yes sir?"

Wolf's bionic eye took a moment to scan him. "Show me where you found our 'little intruder.'"

"Right away sir."

The canine guard took Wolf outside and down through the landing pad-elevator to the laboratories and construction site. Immediately Wolf noticed the few stains of blood near the large, incomplete weapon where some struggle had apparently taken place. Wolf scoffed as the guard led him into the lab doors, where a few scientists were inspecting a small orange-sized mechanical unit. Strangely, there was a dead purple lizard on one of the surrounding tables.

"What's going on in here?!"

The scientists looked up startled to see their commander, and quickly saluted him. "Uh, sir! While we were working on our eh...'project', this litte device fell out of one of the part cases and started analyzying our weapon!"

Wolf stared at him. "Uh-huh. And, uh, what is _that?" _Wolf pointed a claw at the dead lizard on the desk.

A feline scientist adjusted his glasses and shrugged. "Uh, I dunno. It was in the case as well. It leapt up and bit George pretty bad, and-"

"Yeah yeah, I don't give a shit. Gimme that device."

Wolf snatched the device out of one of the scientist's hands and studied it carefully, twirling it around in his paws.

A canine scientist spoke up. "Pardon me, sir, but we were just about to extract the data from-"

"Shut yer trap," Wolf told him. "You passed."

"...Sir?"

Wolf laughed. "You passed! I sent down this little bugger here to see if you halfwits would notice it and take emergency procedures like ordered. And you did. So congratulations."

The scientists let out nervous chuckles. "Very funny, sir...uh, good one."

"Yeah, I know. GET BACK TO WORK!"

With quick yelps, the scientists all scrambled back to their work stations as Wolf left the labs. Seeing the guard that escorted him there, he stopped for a moment.

"Hey, kid. What's yer name?" O'Donnell asked.

The guard looked at him. "Uh, Corporal Gnecco, sir. Why?"

"Get on the intercom and tell everyone it was a false alarm, and to get straight back to work. You hear me?"

"Yes sir. Right away, sir."

The guard scrambled off, and Wolf took to walking back to his quarters, studying the small device as he went.

"Alias:3, huh?" Wolf smirked, pulling a tiny orange hair off of it's front lens.

"Real smooth, Fox."

-

-

**Fox's Hovel, Current Time**

**-**

**-**

"Peppy, it looks like the alarms have shut off. I don't know why, but I'm seeing an opportunity here," Fox breathed over the com link, his back to a rigid tree.

_"Well Fox..." _Fox heard a gruff grunt from the hare. _"I suppose there really is no choice. But please, if at all possible..."_

"Yeah Peppy, I know."

_"Stay low, son."_

The com link clicked off and the hero of Lylat took a moment to regain his composure. He tried to sit, but he didn't want to have to deal with the pain of getting up again. He shifted his backpack to his front side, opened it, and searched the contents of the medical kit to see if there was anything to help stabilize his pain. He found more antiseptic, more gauze wrap, a few sharp tools, the empty syringe from earlier, and a small baggie of Oreos with a little note signed from Slippy on the inside.

The vulpine shook his head._ Gotta love 'em._

"Ugh." Fox very slowly sat down on the dirt and prepared to change his bandages once more. He tried rolling up his pants, but once it reached his wound it hurt way too much to continue. With a shrug, Fox unsheathed his knife and cut the portion of pants just below the knee clean off, and stuffed the remains in his backpack. Chomping into an Oreo, he unraveled his bandages and saw that his ugly wound wasn't doing _too _bad. The ugly portion of missing fur and charred skin complimented the disgusting sear scar. The skin underneath and around the scar was a gross mixture of red and purple.

"Oh, internal bleeding. Fabulous."

Fox globbed some more antiseptic on the scar for good measure, since the burn from his blaster was starting to hurt as well. He tightly wrapped it in the last of the bandages, and then tried moving his leg.

"Oof! Ouch! Grr.."

Fox was completely grossed out by his leg's movement. When he lifted it up, the portion below the knee wobbled and bent in extraordinarily painful ways. This was not going to help his walking any, especially the amount of snooping he was about to be doing.

Tapping into his resourceful vulpine nature, or "McCloud mode," as Fox liked to call it, he scavenged his hovel for a few sturdy sticks. Brandishing his knife, he carved them into long shafts that supported his leg and stuck into various places in his boot where his foot couldn't reach. Carefully, he tied all of the shafts together in various places and secured the makeshift brace securely onto his leg.

Now, he had to try it out.

Painstakingly reaching his feet once more, Fox carefully put weight on his foot. It still hurt, but the brace took a lot of pressure off each step, enough to walk around with only a mildly bad limp.

He flipped another Oreo into his mouth. Fox was pleased with himself.

_Get your game face on, Fox. You can't mess this up._

Fox's expression changed into a solemn one in the blink of an eye.

Now that the alarms were down, Fox didn't have any use for his blaster. It would make way too much noise and draw too much attention for Fox to handle. Maybe if his leg wasn't broken, he might've been able to pull off a Rambo, but this was still a recon mission anyway.

His knife was going to be his best friend.

The vulpine shuddered. _No, I'm not killing anybody. That would put this whole mission in jeopardy._

But what if he needed to? Fox imagined what Falco would say.

_Well sheesh Foxie, I know I certainly wouldn't want some sweaty dumbass tryin' to show me the ol' one-two and get away wit' it. Do whatcha need to, buddy. We're mercenaries, remember?_

Fox chuckled lightly. He had known Falco long enough to know that was exactly what he would've said.

Fox mentally listed his obscurities. Avoiding detection, finding the Alias, and escaping to the Great Fox.

"Oh, brother."

What if they had taken the Alias somewhere else, somewhere where Fox wouldn't find it? Or maybe the destroyed it!

No. It wouldn't matter. Fox would find it either way. He always had a knack to come out on top of predicaments like these.

He took one last peek around the corner of his hovel, to make sure no one would see him when he went for the door.

No one in sight.

Carefully, Fox treaded across the grass towards the base's many doors. Fox had been lucky to find this one, as this door seemed to be a side exit of some sort. His stomach fluttering, he limped a bit faster until he was standing right in front of the door. He played out what he was going to do first in his mind.

_You got this._

The door made virtually no noise as Fox pushed it open. He saw the same sight he did with the Alias; a long, tiled hallway with metallic walls that stopped abruptly and split into two more hallways. About 4 doors lined this hallway, and Fox knew what was in each one.

Fox put his ear to the glass window on the first door to the right. The door's personal blinds were shut, and the door was locked, as Fox had left it. He could hear the sounds of light snoring coming from inside.

_There's one down..._

The vulpine checked the status of all the rooms in the hall, and found them exactly as he left them. He needed to find a way safely outside and down the elevator. Which now, seemed very unlikely. Fox shook his head. His best hope now is that someone actually moved the Alias and left it where Fox could find it.

It was time to advance before someone came walking around the corner. Trying his best to be silent, Fox crept down to the end of the hallway and peeked around both corners, his leg aching him the whole way.

To the right, more hallways and an exit all the way down. To the left, a more complicated network of doors and hallways.

_Hard to believe there's a huge evil taking place here, _Fox thought. He took the fork right to see if he could find anything helpful before he continued.

Instead, he found everything the exact same as it was. Tiny rooms with nothing but two bookcases, a desk, a chair, and occasionally a computer.

Perhaps Wolf's fleet was made up of secretaries? Nah.

Fox was very surprised he hadn't had an encounter yet. Just then, his com link rang and scared the wits out of him. Furiously, he scrambled to shut it off.

"What...is it...Slippy..." Fox whispered through gritted teeth. He crept his way to the farthest room down the hallway for safety.

_"Fox, I have an idea," _Slippy said as Fox locked the office door behind him. _"If you can get on to one of those computers' mainframes, I can send you a bypass code and we can try to track the location of the Alias from there!"_

"That's brilliant Slippy!" Fox said excitedly, but quietly. "Why didn't you just tell me this before?"

_"Heh, you know me, Fox. It's just happens sometimes."_

"Alright, I'm gonna have to do this quick though, I don't know how much time I have," Fox mentioned before shutting off the link. He sat down in the desk chair with a wince, glancing at the computer. The desktop had the standard rolling green hills picture as it's background. Fox began going through the computer settings, trying to access the mainframe.

Getting to the core of a computer was one particularly interesting skill they taught at the Academy back when Fox was enlisted. It was intended for computer workers in the army to have a way to seek and transfer intelligence and help. Fox remembered when he had skipped a lecture to go with Slippy once, and they ended up in the computer class, thus learning how to do this. Slippy had mentioned he had picked it up pretty fast, and then commented that it probably 'ran in his blood', being a resourceful thinker and all.

Thoughts of Fox's childhood and his father suddenly filled his mind.

Fox imagined what his dad would say if he saw him right now. Sitting in the middle of an enemy base with a broken leg, hacking a computer. James would've thought Fox must've been crazy.

_Or maybe brave._

"Bah, there it is," Fox murmured as he accessed the computer's guts. "Slippy, I'm in. Mind sending me whatever you have?"

_"10-4, good buddy," _he heard the toad say. Fox recieved data on his wrist com a few moments later.

"Wow, long code," Fox commented to himself as he read the code and typed it in. "Got it."

A structural map appeared on the screen, showing Fox a scan of the enitre base. Anything electrical was highlighted, and when Fox would scroll over a highlighted item, it's general information would show up along with model dates.

As far as he could see, the general electrical component was the mass amounts of seemingly unused computers in this place, save a few lamps and powercords. Something did catch his interest, though.

Not too far from Fox's location was a different kind of room. It was a bit larger, and there were a few electrical devices in it. Fox scrolled over the first two devices, which he noticed to be a TV and a stereo system.

"Maybe it's the lounge."

He disregarded the idea when he noticed the room was much too small. It seemed to be more of a personal bedroom. The computer model was different, too.

Fox went to go check the last device, when it suddenly shifted its location in the room. It went from next to the computer to somewhere in the middle of the room. Accompanying it was a new, but very tiny device. Fox scrolled over both of them.

"Amino4 Visual Stabilizer, Enhancer, and Computing System. Slippy, any idea what this is?"

Fox practically heard the toad thinking. _"Visual stabilizer, huh? Must be some kind of fancy sunglasses. Not quite sure, Fox. Find the Alias yet?"_

"Uh, one second." Scrolling over the last, round device, Fox found another cryptic name such as the first one.

"Awesomely Little Inisightful Advanced Scouter? What the hell?" Fox said in disbelief.

_"Oh, oh! Fox, that's the Alias!"_

"Wha...Are...are you _kidding _me?!" Fox grumbled. "Slippy, why was it programmed with that kind of name?"

_"Heh heh, sorry Fox. I'm a sucker for acronyms."_

Fox rubbed his eyes with two fingers and shook off the irritation. "Well, I've located it. I'm going to try to make an attempt at seizing it. I want you and the team ready, in case I need to make a break for it."

_"Not a problem, Fox. We've got the Great Fox pretty close to the surface, and the tractor beam is ready to bring you up whenever."_

"Good, good. Hey uh, Slip? It's probably not the right time or place right now, but uh..." Fox faltered.

_"What is it, buddy?"_

"H-How's uh, everyone...doing?"

_"Oh. Well, um..." _the toad took a moment to check. _"Falco's still getting treated for his cuts, but he's doin' alright. Peppy went to lie down for a bit, he seems to be a nervous wreck, I wonder why..."_

Fox coughed in dispostion.

_"And I haven't seen Krystal too much lately...she's doing okay, I think she's lying down. Want me to get go get her?"_

Fox jumped a bit in his seat. "Oh, no no, not now Slippy. I'm in the middle of a mission, sheesh."

_"Well you aske-"_

"I'll call you in a bit. Fox out."

Hastily, the vulpine shut off the com link and studied the map a bit more. The Alias was still in the same spot, although it was fidgeting a bit.

The worst of Fox's fears was over. He didn't have to go underground and ultimately risk his life with all of those guards hanging around there. According to the map, the Alias was just a few halls down. If Fox was careful enough...

"Ha! That's a _good _one.' What are ya, some kinda brown noser?"

Laughter erupted from the hallway. Fox's stomach leaped up to his throat.

He had to hide, and quick. Madly, Fox looked around for a good hiding spot, but there was literally no cover in this room. He could hide underneath the desk, but he'd be cornered, surely.

Then, something caught his eye. There was small space behind the bookshelf next to the computer, just enough for Fox to wedge himself behind. Quickly and painfully, he jumped from his chair and slid behind the bookshelf, hitting his snout hard while doing so. He was breathless in seconds.

"Yeah, well somebody's gotta kiss his ass, otherwise he'll kick all of ours," a guard said from outside. the voices were getting closer.

"Well, ya got a point..." Judging by the amount of voices, Fox guessed there were two guards in the hallway. There was a brief silence, and then a small rattle was heard.

"Man, who the hell is locking all of these doors?" One of the guards asked in frustration as he pulled out a set of keys.

"Maybe the alert locked all of the doors," the other guard said. The door opened, and Fox nearly lost his lunch.

He heard one of the guards sit down in the office chair, and then was greeted with a blunt bump to the face when the guard rolled into the bookcase Fox was behind. Fox tried to keep his yelp in.

"Well, I'll guess I'll see ya later tonight Ricky," one of the guards said. "Apparently, they're finishing the project and shipping it out tonight."

Fox almost gasped. _What?! Tonight?!_

"'Bout damn time. See you later," the guard in the chair said.

The door closed, and the guard sighed. Fox winced uncomfortably. Being jammed in that tiny space was hell for his body.

_What am I supopsed to do now, wait? _Fox asked himself, knowing full well that was exactly what he was going to be doing. All he had to do was stay quiet and wait until the time was right. Fox didn't know how long he could last though, being cramped up and forced to breathe quietly. He just hoped he could get this over with soon.

_Way to go, Fox._

-

-

"Really? He infiltrated this place with _that thing?"_

The dark-colored feline observed the Alias, twsiting it around with his paws. "I've got to give the fool some credit, only a madman would do such a thing." He snorted a laugh and tossed the recon unit to Wolf.

Wolf caught it with one hand. "Yeah, well, without me he'd be a dead madman right now," he muttered with a growl. "I had to pull that lame story out of my ass down there. I'm surprised those ding-dongs believed me."

"Ding-dongs, Wolf?" Leon asked humorously. "I haven't heard such a word since I was in grade school. Tell me, when did you graduate? 4th grade?"

Leon chuckled at his own joke, but Wolf wasn't smiling in the least. "Shut up you dope, this is serious. We can't let Fox on, but we have to make sure he lives, too. That orange bastard is lucky that I grabbed this from down there, or he would've been deader then a doorknob trying to get to the underground facility."

"I know Wolf, you've-"

Before Leon could continue, a small chime emanated from the computer in the room. Quickly, Wolf pushed Leon out of the computer chair and answered the call.

"You rang?" Wolf answered, flipping on the audio communicator.

_"What's going on down there?" _the low voice asked. _"I'm getting reports that a red alert went on not too long ago. What are you doing, Wolf?"_

Wolf scoffed. "Nothin', it was a false alarm. I was testing out the brain capacity of your assholes down here. Everything's _peachy._"

The voice growled a bit. _"Don't play games with me, Wolf. That weapon needs to be finished tonight. It's already been scheduled for shipping, so I don't want to have to bribe the Cornerian Galaxy Shipping Service AGAIN. You know how much that cost me?"_

"You honestly think I care?"

The voice laughed. _"You're right, it doesn't matter. But, either way, if the plan doesn't follow through even in the tiniest way, you and your team are dead. Are we clear?"_

Wolf's face began to creep into a snarl, but he held it in. "Yeah. Clear."

_"Good. I call back later tonight, before the shipping company arrives."_

The computer chimed again, and the transmission closed. Wolf pushed himself away from the desk and looked at his teammates.

"I really hate that bastard."

-

-

It had been about half an hour. Fox's fists were clenched so hard, his hands were bleeding.

The anticipation was killing him, almost literally. The armored canine was just in front of the bookcase, and it didn't seem like he was moving anytime soon. Fox held his breath in a cold sweat as he contemplated his next move. He couldn't sit here forever.

The guard was leaned back in his chair, talking to someone on the office phone. "Nah, I don't got anything else to do. We had a red alert going on earlier, but it just turned out to be a false alarm. Damn people have no idea what they're doing down there.

Only slightly relieved, the vulpine remained behind the bookcase and listened more.

"What? Oh, no. Haven't seen O'Donnell in days. Gillreath's been making a couple of calls down here lately, though, and security's gettin' boosted...yeah I know, I hate the job too."

Fox's eyes went wide. _Gillreath? What?_

"Ah, alright, see you on the night shift." There was an audible click from the phone getting hung up, and the guard sighed and leaned back in his chair.

This was too good to pass up. Fox had to get ahold of Slippy, and as soon as possible. But there was still the trouble of this guard. Fox just couldn't make the call.

He had to do something.

Fox hadn't noticed the considerable amount of blood he had been losing; there was a stain running down his pants that was beginning to leak onto the floor, trickling past the corner of the bookcase.

_Oh no._

"What the...somebody dyin' back there?" the guard said aloud.

Fox held his breath, and then heard the chair squeak.

That was it.

"GRAHHH!"

The bookcase slammed down on top of the guard, destroying the computer, snapping the desk in two, causing a bloodcurdling scream and a horrible crunch as it roared to the floor.

Fox cried out in pain and his leg spasmed and he fell to the ground, writhing in agony. A thick pool of blood along with the guard's arm was leaking out from the fallen bookcase. Fox had landed in an uncomfortable pile of books, and glass from the computer screen was everyhwere.

Fox squirmed on the ground, his leg making him want to die. To make things worse, there was a shout coming from down the hallway.

The door flew open and another guard burst in and fell forward, tripping on the debris. "What the fuck is- OH HELL!"

Fox's eyes shot open, his vulpine relfexes seizing his brain and body. In half a second, he swiped his knife from his side and held it on top of his chest.

The weight of the body slammed against Fox and pained him more, but the satisfying chunk and death moan assured him he was safe....for the moment.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," Fox gasped, witnessing the destruction before him. He pushed the dead guard off of him and pulled the knife from the center of his chest. As he wiped the blood from his blade, he began to panic.

_They'll be here in seconds,_ Fox thought. _They'll walk in, see these two dead jerks, and then they're going to shoot me. I'm screwed, I'm done for._

Fox waited, but nobody came.

_I gotta get out of here._

Torment erupting from his leg, Fox climbed to his feet and limped towards the exit. Before he left, he took one last look at what he had just done.

A broken mug of coffee was strewn across the right wall, having flown from the dead guard's hands as he fell onto Fox's blade just moments before. Fox hoped that nobody had heard him, and that no one would come down this way. He took the same safety precautions as before; he closed the door's personal blinds so no one could see in, locked the door, closed it, and promptly left the scene.

Fox's heart was racing. He needed to call Slippy.

The vulpine scurried into the room across the slim hall, locking the door behind him. When he felt he was safe, Fox opened the com link.

"Slippy, this if Fox. I just heard some disturbing news," Fox panted.

_"Eek! What Fox? What?"_

"They're finishing the weapon and transporting it away from here tonight. Gillreath has been in charge of this whole operation." Fox said his sentence so fast it could've won a marathon.

_"Oh, CRAP." _Slippy groaned. _"Fox, what are we supposed to do?! It doesn't matter if you have the Alias or not now, we're doomed!"_

Fox shook his head, even though he knew Slippy couldn't see him. "No. I need to get the Alias, or else they know that I've been here. Plus, I scanned that damn weapon, maybe we can do something with it...I don't know!" Fox yelled, defeated. "I...I don't know."

The vulpine slumped against the wall, his hopes shattered. He had been on a wild goose chase this whole time. He had doomed his whole planet. What was General Pepper going to say when he found out that the Star Fox team had failed?

A new sensation of fury began to build in Fox's abdomen. Failure was not an option.

"Slippy, I'll call you back soon. Be ready."

Fox shut off the transmission and stood erect. The Star Fox team never quit. Fox was not going to admit defeat.

"Not on my watch."

He left the room he was in, and brought back the images from the computer to his mind. He was getting the Alias back, and nothing was going to stop him.

The vulpine crept along the cold halls, using his photographic memory to retrace his steps and find his way towards the room where the Alias was located. The hallways were empty, which was saving Fox a lot of trouble. He probably wouldn't be able to deal with an encounter right now, despite how cocky he was feeling.

According to his memory, the room where Fox was headed was just around the corner. He took a left, his boot steps making dull clattering noises as he prowled along. The room was just ahead of him now.

Suddenly, the door opened. Fox threw himself behind an adjacent hall's edge and listened carefully.

He could hear gruff, low voices, too low to be heard. He judged that there were 3 guards this time, and they were going the opposite direction of Fox. He sighed in relief, very quietly. Waiting a few moments, he poked his head around the corner and saw that the 3 were gone.

"Bingo."

Fox seized the moment of opportunity and sped-stealthed his way towards the room. Victory was within his grasp.

Very swiftly, he opened the room's door and shut himself inside. Backed up against the door after closing it, he saw something new, for once.

This room was very different from all the others. It was a just a bit larger, and had a TV on the far side of it, propped up on an end table. To the left was a wooden desk with a different model computer then all of the other cubicles in this base. Sitting on the desk next to the computer, however, was-

"The Alias! Ha!"

Fox grabbed the Alias off of the desk with eager paws, and stuffed it deep into his backpack. _I'm not losing you this time, _he thought.

Fox was overjoyed, and well ready to leave. He opened up his com link. "Slippy, I've retrieved the Alias. I...OOF!"

A dull blow to the back of Fox's head rudely interrupted him. Fox fell to the ground with a groan, and looked up with half-closed eyes to see his attacker. A guard stood at the entrance of the door, the butt of his pistol still in the air.

"An intruder, eh? Wolf's gonna promote for for killing you! Ahaha!" The guard lowered his pistol down at the injured vulpine.

"EUURRAHHH!!" Fox bounded forward and tackled the guard at the knees, sending them both to the ground in a furious tumble. Fox's eyes were full of rage, his snout twisted into an ugly snarl as he and the canine guard wrestled on the floor.

"Urk..get off me, you...!" The guard struggled for a position as Fox whaled on his exposed face. The guard sat there for a moment, taking a few blows before kicking Fox to the side and releasing the same treatment upon him.

The two exchanged more and more hits to the face. Each time Fox got hit, his rage swelled into an unfathomable fury. The guard had pinned him to the ground with both knees, punching Fox in the face several times. Fox put a fist in front of his own snout in retaliation, and then used his good leg to swing his foot upwards and crack the guard in the back of the head. With a groan the guard fell forward, right into Fox's fist. With a snarl, the vulpine tackled the guard and drew his blade, holding it to his attacker's neck.

"Nice try, asshole," Fox growled, pressing the knife against the guard's throat. He grabbed the guard's free hand and shoved it behind his own back, making the canine yelp in pain.

"I'm...gonna get you...Argh!"

Blood trickled onto Fox's hand, seeping from the throat of the captured unit.

"You're not going _anywhere," _Fox murmured, pressing his weight down on the guard's back. The guard struggled, but to no avail.

His eyes glazed over in some compulsive rage, Fox growled into the guard's ear. The captured soldier was struggling, but Fox's weight kept him down.

"Urk...get...off me, you..."

Fox pulled the blade closer to the guard's neck. "You _what? _Huh?! Don't make me do this."

"You...don't have the...guts..."

Fox's growl faded as the searing pain arose in his bleeding leg. "Actually..." he snarled, his eyes fully glazing over, "...I don't think _you _do."

_SLICE!_

The orginial trickle of blood turned into a river as the deed was done. The guard fell limp to the ground, and the vulpine rolled off of him and laid on a warm puddle of blood that was gathering on the tiles. He was panting in a cold sweat, the primal fury emanating out of his body in flashes.

He slowly turned his head towards the slain guard. Blood was pooling all around him like a crimson coffin. Fox's eyes were wide and distraught as he looked upon the very sin he had just committed.

_What have I done?_

A sudden pain shot through Fox's temples, and he threw his hand to his forehead to try and subside it. He had just ruthlessly killed someone.

_But I'm a mercenary, _the vulpine thought. _I've killed people before...why...is this different?_

Fox groaned, his eyes welling up from the pain that shot over his body. He didn't have time to think, just time to act.

He struggled to his knees, removing the armor from the guard and tearing off the undershirt he was wearing. Carefully, Fox crammed the body underneath the desk and out of sight, mopped up the blood on the floor with the undershirt, and then cleaned the blood off himself and the bottoms of his boots. He asked himself why he was being so careful, and then recalled:

_Because I'm a fox, dammit._

He painfully arose to his feet, and grabbed the Alias off the floor. "Slippy...a-are you still there?"

_"10-4 Fox. Are you okay?"_

"I hope you have the engine running."

And then, Fox bolted out of the room. His leg was screaming in utter agony, but Fox didn't have time to care. He didn't have the time to feel pain.

He only had time to run.

Fox tore through the base, knocking things down and shouting orders to Slippy. As he turned one of the hallways, Fox plowed right through 3 guards, sending them all to the ground as he ran. With a few confused shouts, the guards quickly reached their feet and began chasing the escaping hero.

"Oh shit, they're on me...Slippy! Listen to me!" Fox shouted, tearing through more hallways. "We don't have ONE SECOND to lose. I'm running dead south, and I'm not going to stop. You understand me?! You need to beam me up as soon as I hit the dirt!"

_"I hear you Fox, I hear you!" _the jumbled toad yelled over the com link. "_I've got a tracking system following you now. Just keep running, we'll pick you up! Please Fox, don't give up now!" _Slippy was obviously scared. Fox continued to bolt through the halls, knocking down end tables that were in the halls to try and stall the guards. They weren't far behind him now.

Fox almost tripped rounding the next corner. Straight down the hall, Fox saw the exit.

"DON'T LET THAT BASTARD GET AWAY!"

Fox turned his head to see the guards directly behind him, their pistols drawn. Laser shots began to pepper the air around Fox.

Time began to slow down for the vulpine. He saw everything around him collapse into slow motion. The laser fire was filling the air. Fox shifted left and watched a flurry of energy erupt past him.

He was in full McCloud mode now.

_Left, right, duck. _Fox was no longer in control of his own body. He watched himself dodge and escape lasers that would've surely killed him. His legs were completely numb, but were still speeding him forward. He felt each foot hit the ground and powerfully push away in every stride.

"DON'T LET HIM GO! GET A FRAG OUT THERE!"

Fox turned his head in horror to see the guard in the middle pulling the pin from the explosive that was just about to end the vulpine's life.

Fox didn't feel his hand swipe out his knife. Fox didn't feel his back arch as he turned his upper body around. Fox didn't feel his arm cocking itself back, and then snapping forward, the knife flying from his hand on a course set straight for destruction.

Every whirl, every turn, every gleam...Fox watched in silent observance as he watched his knife twirl through the air flawlessly and cut the air around it as it went. The guard had his arm cocked, ready to hurl the grenade as his comrades desperately tried to swipe it from his hands. Fox's knife, however, had found it's mark.

Before the explosive left the guard's hand, the knife of fate ripped through it's flesh, tendons, and bone, and then met it's resting place on the back wall. A horrific scream of terror filled the corridor as the guard's severed hand dropped to the ground, the grenade clutched firmly in its dead fingers.

_Click._

**_BOOOOOM!!!_**

The hallway erupted in an explosion of fire, blowing the unlucky guards into chunks and crashing Fox through the door and out into the open once more. The battered and charred vulpine rolled through the grass a few times, and miraculously rolled straight back on to his feet and kept running. As Fox continued into the jungle, he saw the destruction he had left in his wake.

He wasn't going to get much sleep tonight.

"Oh Christ...Slippy, come in. Do you read me? Ugh." Fox was out of breath, cramps forming in his side and pain returning his body once more. The adrenaline was slowly leaving his body.

_"Ha! I knew you'd make it! There's a clearing up ahead of you, we'll beam you up from there. I'm so glad you made it Fox!"_

The hero of Lylat let a small smile creep on to his snout. "Me too, buddy."

Fox's legs allowed him the strength to come into the clearing, and then they gave out completely and let Fox fall onto his side on the ground. He was so tired. So very, very tired.

As he laid there, panting and aching, he felt a rumble shake the ground and heard a whirring fill the air. Above him was the invisible Great Fox.

_"Initiating tractor beam. Welcome back Fox."_

Fox felt a slight tug on his body as he began lifting up towards the heavens. Above him, a chute cranked open, revealing a section the inside of the Great Fox. He was drifting up rather slowly, so he pulled out the bag of Oreos from his backpack.

As he opened the bag, he got one final look at Wolf's base. The end he had came out of was slightly destroyed, and the alarms were blaring once again. Fox told himself he could care less right now, and that his mission was complete. He took a chomp out of one of the cookies, and closed his eyes.

"I hate chocolate."

-

-


	14. Serenity Intermission

**Serenity**

-

The tractor beam's pull slowly faded, letting the body it carried lay gently onto the floor.

A cool draft of air soared freely about the hangar, seeking refuge in a warm soul.

It found its home, lying beaten and bruised on the floor. It found eyes that had seen millions of miles; feet that had traveled thousands of paths.

The air swept around the body gracefully, releasing its soothing grace on the wounds of this poor soul.

Not a moment later, life breathed back into Fox McCloud once more.

-

_"He's in! Alright guys, no time to dawdle. Get him up here and treated now!"_

"Uggh. Well old man, looks like I made it." Fox grinned to himself weakly, lying motionless on the refreshingly cool metallic surface of the Great Fox's hangar. Blood oozed from his fresh wounds, his fur singed from the explosion. He was in utter pain, lying there helplessly; his body torn and battered, certainly never to recover from such horrid poundings.

And yet, Fox could care less at the moment.

He was home now, in his sanctuary. Here, nothing could hurt him. Here, he was invincible to all that dared oppose him.

_The king is in his castle. _

His grin didn't fade, despite his pain. The tingly feeling in his gut let him know that he had accomplished a great act of heroism for his world. Fox had saved the day, once again. He hadn't felt this feeling in so long. He believed it had been so long suppressed that it may have simply faded away, never to be enjoyed again.

But, he was wrong.

_Just like old times._

The clanging of boots against metal began to ring through the vulpine's ears. Weakly, Fox lifted his head up to just make out the form of his teammates rushing towards him. His eyes were swollen and blurry- but even a blind man could tell that he was in the best of care- the loving arms of his friends.

"Sheesh, he looks _horrible,_" one of the voices said as the rest of Team Star Fox approached their wounded captain. Fox was nearly sure it was Slippy, judging by how the tone of the voice was still optimistic....and whiny.

"Here now, lift him up." Two pairs of hands lifted Fox's broken body from the ground. He only caught images every now and then, as his vision was fading constantly. Fox felt himself moving very quickly, as if he was getting pushed through water by a strong yet gentle current. The voices continued, but all Fox could hear was a dull buzzing as he slipped in and out of consciousness.

_"Fox?"_ A gentle voice whispered somewhere inside his head.

Fox was suddenly surrounded in black, floating in a black void of nothingness. The soft voice chimed and echoed all around him.

"That's me," he said, a sudden warmth enveloping him.

_"I'm glad you're okay,"_ the voice whispered. _"I couldn't have beared to lose you."_

The warmth intensified into a radiant, gentle caress. "I'm not going anywhere."

Silence, for a moment.

_"Good."_

Then, Fox saw only white.

-

-

A soft, beeping drone began to emanate through Fox's ears. Slowly, as the white curtain of sleep was drawn, the vulpine realized where he was, and who was with him. He blinked his eyes as his vision faded in.

"There you are."

All Fox did was chuckle. He closed his eyes again and turned a bit in the medical bed. "Heh heh, here I am."

He outstretched his arms, eyes still closed. A warm figure fell into his grasp and embraced him, sinking its head into his chest.

"You almost left us," the figure sniffled. "I've been here for hours just watching the monitor...waiting for you to wake up."

Fox was silent for a moment, letting his fingers course through the soft azure hair. "Well," he started, holding the figure closer. "I..I've just got too much to care about for me to just go away." He smiled. "I'm here to stay, Krystal."

She lifted her head up to meet his still-shut eyes. Tears in her own, she softly locked fingers with the ones previously stroking her hair. "Always?" She murmured.

"...Always."

Krystal let her tears fall, smiling from ear to ear the whole time. Slowly, she leaned forward and gave Fox a peck on the cheek. His ears perked up, and almost instantly his heart monitor began to beep faster. He chuckled once more, and pulled Krystal close to him.

"It's good to be back."

-


End file.
